
FBONTISPIECE. 



See page 2/2. 



I 

h 

SKETCHES BY BOZ 



ILLUSTRATIVE OF 



EVERY-DAY LIFE AND EVERY-DAY 
PEOPLE. 



WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 



LONDON : 
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY, 

1854. 



•H 



ie54 



LONDON : 

BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 

^£ctA<^ CU4B i^m\, 






PREFACE. 



The whole of these Sketches were written and . published, 
one by one, when I was a very young man. They were 
collected and re-published while I was still a very young 
man; and sent into the world with all their imperfections 
(a good many) on their heads. 

They comprise my first attempts at authorship — with the 
exception of certain tragedies achieved at the mature age 
of eight or ten, and represented with great applause to 
overflowing nurseries. I am conscious of their often being 
extremely crude and ill-considered, and bearing obvious 
marks of haste and inexperience ; particularly in that section 
of the present volume which is comprised under the general 
head of Tales. 

But as this collection is not originated now, and was very 
leniently and favourably received when it was first made, I 
have not felt it right either to remodel or expunge, beyond 
a few words and phrases here and there. 

London, 

October. 1850. 



CONTENTS. 

SEVEN SKETCHES FROM OUR PARISH. 
CHAPTER I. 

VXGV. 
THE BEADLE — THE PARISH-ENGINE THE SCHOOLMASTER . .1 

CHAPTER II. 

THE CURATE — THE OLD LADY — THE HALF-PAY CAPTAIN ... 4 

CHAPTER III. 

THE FOUR SISTERS .8 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE ELECTION FOR BEADLE . . . . . . . . 11 

CHAPTER V. 

THE BROKER'S MAN 15 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE LADIES' SOCIETIES 21 

CHAPTER VII. 

OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR 24 



X CONTENTS. 

SCENES. 
CHAPTER I. 

PA.QH 
THE STREETS MORNING . 29 

CHAPTER II. 

THE STREETS NIGHT 32 

CHAPTER III. 

SHOPS AND THEIR TENANTS . . . . . . . 36 

CHAPTER IV. 

SCOTLAND-YARD 39 

CHAPTER V. 

SEVEN-DIALS ........... 42 

CHAPTER V 

MEDITATIONS IN MONMOUTH-STREET ...... 45 

CHAPTER VII. 

HACKNEY-COACH STANDS 49 

CHAPTER VIII. 

doctors' commons ......... 52 

CHAPTER IX 

LONDON RFCREATIONS . .55 



CONTENTS. XI 



CHAPTER X. 

PAGE 
THE RIVER ... ...... i . 59 



CHAPTER XI. 
astley's 63 

CHAPTER XII. 

GREENWICH FAIR ......... 67 

CHAPTER XIII. 

PRIVATE THEATRES 72 

CHAPTER XIV. 

VAUXHALL-GARDENS BY DAY ....... 76 

CHAPTER XV. 

EARLY COACHES 79 

CHAPTER XVI. 

OMNIBUSES 83 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE LAST CAB-DRIVER, AND THE FIRST OMNIBUS-CAD . . . . 86 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

A PARLIAMENTARY SKETCH . . . . . . . .92 

CHAPTER XIX. 

PUBLIC DINNERS 99 



XU CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XX. 

PAGE 

THE FIRST OF MAY . • 103 

CHAPTER XXI. 
brokers' and marine-store shops 108 

CHAPTER XXII. 
gin-shops Ill 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
the pawnbroker's shop 114 

CHAPTER XXI V. 

CRIMINAL COURTS 119 

CHAPTER XXV. 

A VISIT TO NEWGATE 122 



CHARACTERS. 
CHAPTER I. 

THOUGHTS ABOUT PEOPLE 131 

CHAPTER II. 

A CHRISTMAS DINNER 134 

CHAPTER III. 

THE NEW YEAR 137 

CHAPTER IV. 

MISS EVANS AND THE EAGLE ........ 140 



CONTENTS. XUl 

CHAPTER V. 

PAGE 
THE PARLOUR ORATOR 143 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE HOSPITAL PATIENT 146 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE MISPLACED ATTACHMENT OF MR. JOHN DOUNCE .... 149" 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE MISTAKEN MILLINER. A TALE OF AMBITION . . , . 153 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE DANCING ACADEMY 157 

CHAPTER X. 

SHABBY-GENTEEL PEOPLE ........ 161 

CHAPTER XI. 

MAKING A NIGHT OF IT 164 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE PRISONERS' VAN . 168 



TALES. 
CHAPTER I. 

THE BOARDING-HOUSE • '. .170 

CHAPTER II. 

MR. MINNS AND HIS COUSIN 192 



XIV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER III. 

PAGE 
SENTIMENT 198 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE TUGGS'S AT RAMSGATE 205 

CHAPTER V. 

HORATIO SPARKINS . . . 217 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE BLACK VEIL 227 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE STEAM EXCURSION ..... . . 234 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE GREAT WINGLEBURY DUEL ........ 248 

CHAPTER IX. 

MRS. JOSEPH PORTER ..... .... 259 

CHAPTER X. 

A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. WATKINS TOTTLE . . . . 265 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING ....... 287 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE DRUNKARD'S DEATH .... .... 297 



SKETCHES. 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



OUR PARISH. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE BEADLE. THE PARISH ENGINE. THE SCHOOLMASTER. 



How much is conveyed in those two 
short words — " The'' Parish ! " And 
with how many tales of distress and 
misery, of broken fortune and ruined 
hopes, too often of unrelieved wretch- 
edness and successful knavery, are they 
associated ! A poor man, with small 
earnings, and a large family, just ma- 
nages to live on from hand to mouth, 
and to procure food from day to day ; 
he has barely sufficient to satisfy the 
present cravings of nature, and can 
take no heed of the future. His taxes 
are in arrear, quarter day passes by, 
another quarter day arrives : he can 
procure no more quarter for himself, 
and is summoned by — the parish. His 
goods are distrained, his children are 
crying with cold and hunger, and the 
very bed on which his sick wife is 
lying, is dragged from beneath her. 
What can he do ? To whom is he to 
apply for relief ? To private charity ? 
To benevolent individuals ? Certainly 
not — there is his parish. There are 
the parish vestry, the parish infirmary, 
the parish surgeon, the parish officers, 
the parish beadle. Excellent institu- 
tions, and gentle, kind-hearted men. 
The woman dies — she is buried by the 
parish. The children have no protector 
No. 173. ] 



— they are taken care of by the parish. 
The man first neglects, ana afterwards 
cannot obtain, work — he is relieved by 
the parish ; and when distress and 
drunkenness have done their work 
upon him, he is maintained, a harmless 
babbling idiot, in the parish asylum. 

The parish beadle is one of the most, 
perhaps the most, important member 
of the local administration. He is not 
so well off as the churchwardens, cer- 
tainly, nor is he so learned as the 
vestry-clerk, nor does he order things 
quite so much .his own way as either 
of them. But his power is very great, 
notwithstanding; and the dignity of his 
office is never impaired by the absence 
of efforts on his part to maintain it. 
The beadle of our parish is a splendid 
fellow. It is quite delightful to hear 
him, as he explains the state of the 
existing poor laws to the deaf old 
women in the board-room-passage on 
business nights ; and to hear what he 
said to the senior churchwarden, and 
what the senior churchwarden said to 
him ; and what a we " (the beadle and 
the other gentlemen), came to the 
determination of doing. A miserable- 
looking woman is called into the board- 
room, and represents a case of extreme 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



destitution, affecting herself — a widow, 
with six small children. " Where do 
you live ? " inquires one of the over- 
seers. u I rente a two-pair back, gen- 
tlemen, at Mrs. Brown's, Number 3, 
Little King William's-alley, which has 
lived there this fifteen year, and knows 
me to be very hard-working and indus- 
trious, and when my poor husband was 
alive, gentlemen, as died in the hos- 
pital" — " Well, well," interrupts the 
overseer, taking a note of the address, 
"I'll send Simmons, the beadle, to- 
morrow morning, to ascertain whether 
your story is correct ; and if so, I sup- 
pose you must have an order into the 
House — Simmons, go to this woman's 
the first thing to-morrow morning, will 
you ? " Simmons bows assent, and 
ushers the woman out. Her previous 
admiration of " the board " (who all sit 
behind great books, and with their hats 
on) fades into nothing before her re- 
spect for her lace-trimmed conductor ; 
and her account of what has passed in- 
side, in creases — if that be possible — the 
marks of respect, shown by the assem- 
bled crowd, to that solemn functionary. 
As to taking out a summons, it 's quite 
a hopeless case if Simmons attends it, 
on behalf of the parish. He knows all 
the titles of the Lord Mayor by heart ; 
states the case without a single stam- 
mer : and it is even reported that on 
one occasion he ventured to make a 
joke, which the Lord Mayor's head 
footman (who happened to be present) 
afterwards told an intimate friend, con- 
fidentially, was almost equal to one of 
Mr. Hobler's. 

See him again on Sunday in his 
state-coat and cocked-hat, with a large- 
headed staff for show in his left hand, 
'and a small cane for use in his right. 
How pompously he marshals the chil- 
dren into their places ! and how de- 
murely the little urchins look at him 
askance as he surveys them when they 
are all seated, with a glare of the eye 
peculiar to beadles ! The churchwar- 
dens and overseers being duly installed 
in their curtained pews, he seats him- 
self on a mahogany bracket, erected 
expressly for him at the top of the 
aisle and divides his attention between 



his prayer-book and the boys. Sud- 
denly, just at the commencement of 
the communion service, when the whole 
congregation is hushed into a profound 
silence, broken only by the voice of 
the officiating clergyman, a penny is 
heard to ring on the stone floor of the 
aisle with astounding clearness. Ob- 
serve the generalship of the beadle. 
His involuntary look of horror is in- 
stantly changed into one of perfect 
indifference, as if he were the only 
person present who had not heard the 
noise. The artifice succeeds. After 
putting forth his right leg now and 
then, as a feeler, the victim who drop- 
ped the money ventures to make one 
or two distinct dives after it ; and the 
beadle, gliding softly round, salutes his 
little round head, when it again ap- 
pears above the seat, with divers 
double knocks, administered with the 
cane before noticed, to the intense de- 
light of three young men in an adjacent 
pew, who cough violently at intervals 
until the conclusion of the sermon. 

Such are a few traits of the import- 
ance and gravity of a parish-beadle — 
a gravity which has never been dis- 
turbed in any case that has come under 
our observation, except when the ser- 
vices of that particularly useful ma- 
chine, a parish fire-engine, are required: 
then indeed all is bustle. Two little 
boys run to the beadle as fast as their 
legs will carry them, and report from 
their own personal observation that 
some neighbouring chimney is on fire; 
the engine is hastily got out, and a 
plentiful supply of boys being obtained, 
and harnessed to it with ropes, away 
they rattle over the pavement, the 
beadle, running — we do not exaggerate 
— running at the side, until they arrive 
at some house, smelling strongly of 
soot, at the door of which the beadle 
knocks with considerable gravity for 
half an hour. No attention being paid 
to these manual applications, and the 
turn-cock having turned on the water, 
the engine turns off amidst the shouts 
of the boys ; it pulls up once more at 
the workhouse, and the beadle " pulls 
up " the unfortunate householder next 
day, for the amount of his legal reward. 



THE SCHOOLMASTER. 



We never saw a parish engine at a 
regular fire but once. It came up in 
gallant style — three miles and a half 
an hour, at least ; there was a capital 
supply of water, and it was first on the 
spot. Bang went the pumps — the 
people cheered— the beadle perspired 
profusely ; but it was unfortunately 
discovered, just as they were going to 
put the fire out, that nobody under- 
stood the process by which the engine 
was filled with water; and that eighteen 
boys, and a man, had exhausted them- 
selves in pumping for twenty minutes, 
without producing the slightest effect ! 

The personages next in importance 
to the beadle, are the master of the 
workhouse and the parish schoolmas- 
ter. The vestry-clerk, as everybody 
knows, is a short, pudgy little man, in 
black, with a thick gold watch-chain 
of considerable length, terminating in 
two large seals and a key. He is an 
attorney, and generally in a bustle ; at 
no time more so, than when he is hur- 
rying to some parochial meeting, with 
his gloves crumpled up in one hand, 
and a large red book under the other 
arm. As to the churchwardens and 
overseers, we exclude them altogether, 
because ail we know of them is, that 
they are usually respectable trades- 
men, who wear hats with brims inclined 
to flatness, and who occasionally testify 
in gilt letters on a blue ground, in some 
conspicuous part of the church, to the 
important fact of a gallery having been 
enlarged and beautified, or an organ 
rebuilt. 

The master of the workhouse is not, 
in our parish — nor is he usually in any 
other — one of that class of men the 
better part of whose existence has 
passed away, and who drag out the 
remainder in some inferior situation, 
with just enough thought of the past, 
to feel degraded by, and discontented 
with, the present. We are unable to 
guess precisely to our own satisfaction 
what station the man can have occu- 
pied before ; we should think he had 
been an inferior sort of attorney's 
clerk, or else the master of a national 
school — whatever he was, it is clear 
his present position is a change for the 



better. His income is small certainly, 
as the rusty black coat and threadbare 
velvet collar demonstrate : but then he 
lives free of house-rent, has a limited 
allowance of coals and candles, and an 
almost unlimited allowance'of authority 
in his petty kingdom. He is a tall, 
thin, bony man ; always wears shoes 
and black cotton stockings with his 
surtout ; and eyes you, as you pass his 
parlour window, as if he wished you 
were a pauper, just to give you a spe- 
cimen of his power. He is an admirable 
specimen of a small tyrant : morose, 
brutish, and ill-tempered ; bullying to 
his inferiors, cringing to his superiors, 
and jealous of the influence and autho- 
rity of the beadle. 

Our schoolmaster is just the very 
reverse of this amiable official. He has 
been one of those men one occasionally 
hears of, on whom misfortune seems 
to have set her mark ; nothing he 
ever did, or was concerned in, appears 
to have prospered. A rich old rela- 
tion who had brought him up, and 
openly announced his intention of pro- 
viding for him, left him 10,000£. in his 
will, and revoked the bequest in a 
codicil. Thus unexpectedly reduced 
to the necessity of providing for him- 
self, he procured a situation in a public 
office. The young clerks below him, 
died off as if there were a plague 
among them ; but the old fellows 
over his head, for the reversion of 
whose places he was anxiously waiting, 
lived on and on, as if they were im- 
mortal. He speculated and lost. He 
speculated again, and won — but never 
got his money. His talents were 
great ; his disposition, easy, generous 
and liberal. His friends profited by 
the one, and abused the other. Loss ' 
succeeded loss ; misfortune crowded on 
misfortune ; each successive day brought 
him nearer the verge of hopeless 
penury, and the quondam friends who 
had been warmest in their professions, 
grew straugely cold and indifferent. 
He had children whom he loved, and 
a wife on whom he doted. The 
former turned their backs on him ; 
the latter died broken-hearted. He 
went with the stream — it had ever 
b2 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



been his failing, and he had not courage 
sufficient to bear up against so many 
shocks — he had never cared for him- 
self, and the only being who had eared 
for him, in his poverty and distress, 
was spared to him no longer. It was 
at this period that he applied for 
parochial relief. Some kind-hearted 
man who had known him in happier 
times, chanced to be churchwarden 
that year, and through his interest he 
was appointed to his present situation. 
He is an old man now. Of the 
many who once crowded round him 
in all the hollow friendship of boon- 
companionship, some have died, some 
have fallen like himself, some have 
prospered — all have forgotten him. 



Time and misfortune have mercifully 
been permitted to impair his memory, 
and use has habituated him to his 
present condition. Meek, uncomplain- 
ing, and zealous in the discharge of 
his duties, he has been allowed to hold 
his situation long beyond the usual 
period ; and he will no doubt continue 
to hold it, until infirmity renders him. 
incapable, or death releases him. As 
the grey-headed old man feebly paces 
up and down the sunny side of the 
little court-yard between school hours, 
it would be difficult, indeed, for the 
most intimate of his former friends to 
recognise their once gay and happy 
associate, in the person of the Pauper 
Schoolmaster. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE CURATE. THE OLD LADY. THE HALF-PAY CAPTAIN. 



We commenced our last chapter with 
the beadle of our parish, because we 
are deeply sensible of the importance 
and dignity of his office. We will 
begin the present, with the clergyman. 
Our curate is a young gentleman of 
such prepossessing appearance, and 
fascinating manners, that within one 
month after his first appearance in 
the parish, half the young-lady inha- 
bitants were melancholy with religion, 
and the other half, desponding with 
love. Never were so many young 
ladies seen in our parish-church on 
Sunday before ; and never had the 
little round angels' faces on Mr. Tom- 
kins's monument in the side aisle, 
beheld such devotion on earth as they 
all exhibited. He was about five-and- 
twenty when he first came to astonish 
the parishioners. He parted his hair 
on the centre of his forehead in the 
form of a Norman arch, wore a 
brilliant of the first water on the 
fourth finger of his left hand (which 
he always applied to his left cheek 
when he read prayers), and had a 
deep sepulchral voice of unusual 



solemnity. Innumerable were the 
calls made by prudent mammas on 
our new curate, and innumerable the 
invitations with which he was assailed, 
and which, to do him justice, he 
readily accepted. If his manner in 
the pulpit had created an impression 
in his favour, the sensation was in- 
creased tenfold, by his appearance in 
private circles. Pews in the imme- 
diate vicinity of the pulpit or reading- 
desk rose in value ; sittings in the 
centre aisle were at a premium : an 
inch of room in the front row of the 
gallery could not be procured for love 
or money ; and some people even 
went so far as to assert, that the 
three Miss Browns, who had an 
obscure family pew just behind the 
churchwardens', were detected, one 
Sunday, in the free seats by the 
communion-table, actually lying in 
wait for the curate as he passed to 
the vestry ! He began to preach 
extempore sermons, and even grave 
papas caught the infection. He got 
out of bed at half-past twelve o'clock 
one winter's night, to half-baptise a 



THE CURATE. 



washerwoman's child in a slop-basin, 
and the gratitude of the parishioners 
knew no bounds — the very church- 
wardens grew generous, and insisted 
on the parish defraying the expense 
of the watch-box on wheels, which 
the new curate had ordered for himself, 
to perform the funeral service in, in 
wet weather. He sent three pints of 
gruel and a quarter of a pound of tea 
to a poor woman who had been 
brought to bed of four small children, 
all at once — the parish were charmed. 
He got up a subscription for her — the 
woman's fortune was made. He spoke 
for one hour and twenty-five minutes, 
at an anti-slavery meeting at the Goat 
and Boots — the enthusiasm was at its 
height. A proposal was set on foot 
for presenting the curate with a piece 
of plate, as a mark of esteem for his 
valuable services rendered to the 
parish. The list of subscriptions was 
filled up in no time ; the contest was, 
not who should escape the contribu- 
tion, but who should be the foremost 
to subscribe. A splendid silver ink- 
stand was made, and engraved with 
an appropriate inscription ; the curate 
was invited to a public breakfast, at 
the before-mentioned Goat and Boots ; 
the inkstand was presented in a neat 
speech by Mr. Gubbins, the ex-church- 
warden, and acknowledged by the 
curate in terms which drew tears into 
the eyes of all present — the very 
waiters were melted. 

One would have supposed that, by 
this time, the theme of universal 
admiration was lifted to the very pin- 
nacle of popularity. No such thing. 
The curate began to cough ; four fits 
of coughing one morning between the 
Litany and the Epistle, and five in the 
afternoon service. Here was a dis- 
covery — the curate was consumptive. 
How interestingly melancholy ! If 
the young ladies were energetic before, 
their sympathy and solicitude now 
knew no bounds. Such a man as the 
curate— such a dear — such a perfect 
love — to be consumptive ! It was too 
much. Anonymous presents of black- 
currant jam, and lozenges, elastic 
waistcoats, bosom friends, and warm 



stockings, poured in upon the curate 
until he was as completely fitted out, 
with winter clothing, as if he were on 
the verge of an expedition to the 
North Pole : verbal bulletins of the 
state of his health were circulated 
throughout the parish half-a-dozen 
times a day ; and the curate was in 
the very zenith of his popularity. 

About this period, a change came 
over the spirit of the parish. A very 
quiet, respectable, dozing old gentle- 
man, who had officiated in our chapel 
of ease for twelve years previously,* 
died one fine morning, without having 
given any notice whatever of his 
intention. This circumstance gave 
rise to counter-sensation the first ; 
and the arrival of his successor occa- 
sioned counter-sensation the second. 
He was a pale, thin, cadaverous man, 
with large black eyes, and long strag- 
gling black hair : his dress was sk> 
venly in the extreme, his manner 
ungainly, his doctrines startling ; in 
short, he was in every respect the 
antipodes of the curate. Crowds of 
our female parishioners flocked to- 
hear him : at first, because he was so 
odd-looking, then because his face was 
so expressive, then because he preached 
so well ; and at last, because they really 
thought that, after all, there was 
something about him which it was- 
quite impossible to describe. As to 
the curate, he was all very well ; but 
certainly, after all, there was no deny- 
ing that — that — in short, the curate 
wasn't a novelty, and the other clergy- 
man was. The inconstancy of public 
opinion is proverbial : the congrega- 
tion migrated one by one. The curate 
coughed till he was black in the face 
— it was in vain. He respired with 
difficulty — it was equally ineffectual 
in awakening sympathy. Seats are 
once again to be had in any part of 
our parish church, and the chapel-of- 
ease is going to be enlarged, as it is 
crowded to suffocation every Sunday I 

The bes^ known an d most respected 
among our parishioners, is an old lady, 
who resided in our parish long before 
our name was registered in the list of 
baptisms. Our parish is a suburban 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



one, and the old lady lives in a neat 
row of houses in the most airy and 
pleasant part of it. The house is her 
own ; and it, and everything about it, 
except the old lady herself, who looks 
a little older than she did ten years ago, 
is in just the same state as when the 
old gentleman was living. The little 
front parlour, which is the old lady's 
ordinary sitting-room, is a perfect pic- 
ture of quiet neatness : the carpet is 
covered with brown Holland, the 
glass and picture-frames are carefully 
enveloped in yellow muslin ; the table- 
covers are never taken off, except 
when the leaves are turpentined and 
bees' waxed, an operation which is 
regularly commenced every other 
morning at half-past nine o'clock — 
and the little nicnacs are always 
arranged in precisely the same man- 
ner. The greater part of these are 
presents from little girls whose parents 
live in the same row ; but some of 
"them, such as the two old-fashioned 
watches (which never keep the same 
time, one being always a quarter of an 
hour too slow, and the other a quarter 
of an hour too fast), the little picture 
.of the Princess Charlotte and Prince 
Leopold as they appeared in the Royal 
Box at Drury-lane Theatre, and others 
of the same class, have been in the 
old lady's possession for many years. 
Here the old lady sits with her spec- 
tacles on, busily engaged in needle- 
work — near the window in summer 
time ; and if she sees you coming up 
the steps, and you happen to be a 
favourite, she trots out to open the 
street door for you before you knock, 
and as you must be fatigued after that 
hot walk, insists on your swallowing 
two glasses of sherry before you exert 
yourself by talking. If you call in the 
evening you will find her cheerful, 
but rather more serious than usual, 
with an open Bible on the table, before 
her, of which "Sarah," who is just as 
neat and methodical as her mistress, 
regularly reads two or three chapters 
in the parlour aloud. 

The old lady sees scarcely any com- 
pany, except the little girls before 
noticed, each of whom has always a 



regular fixed day for a periodical tea- 
drinking with her, to which the child 
looks forward as the greatest treat of 
its existence. She seldom visits at a 
greater distance than the next door 
but one on either side ; and when she 
drinks tea here, Sarah runs out first 
and knocks a double-knock, to pre- 
vent the possibility of her " Missis's " 
catching cold by having to wait at 
the door. She is very scrupulous in 
returning these little invitations, and 
when she asks Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so, 
to meet Mr. and Mrs. Somebody-else, 
Sarah and she dust the urn, and the 
best china tea service, and the Pope 
Joan board ; and the visiters are 
received in the drawing-room in great 
state. She has but few relations, and 
they are scattered about in different 
parts of the country, and she seldom 
sees them. She has a son in India, 
whom she always describes to you as 
a fine, handsome fellow — so like the 
profile of his poor dear father over the 
sideboard, but the old lady adds, with 
a mournful shake of the head, that he 
has always been one of her greatest 
trials, and that indeed he once almost 
broke her heart ; but it pleased God 
to enable her to get the better of it, 
and she would prefer your never men- 
tioning the subject to her, again. She 
has a great number of pensioners : 
and on Saturday, after she comes back 
from market, there is a regular levee 
of old men and women in the passage, 
waiting for their weekly gratuity. 
Her name always heads the list of any 
benevolent subscriptions, and hers are 
always the most liberal donations to 
the Winter Coal and Soup Distribu- 
tion Society. She subscribed twenty 
pounds towards the erection of an 
organ in our parish church, and was 
so overcome the first Sunday the chil- 
dren sang to it, that she was obliged 
to be carried out by the pew-opener. 
Her entrance into church on Sunday 
is always the signal for a little bustle 
in the side aisle, occasioned by a 
general rise among the poor people, 
who bow and curtsy until the pew- 
opener has ushered the old lady into 
her accustomed seat, dropped a re- 



THE CAPTAIN. 



spectful curtsy, and shut the door : 
and the same ceremony is repeated 
on her leaving church, when she 
walks home with the family next door 
but one, and talks about the sermon 
all the way, invariably opening the 
conversation by asking the youngest 
boy -where the text was. 

Thus, with the annual variation of 
a trip to some quiet place on the sea- 
coast, passes the old lady's life. It 
has rolled on in the same unvarying 
and benevolent course for many years 
now, and must at no distant period be 
brought to its final close. She looks 
forward to its termination, with calm- 
ness and without apprehension. She 
has everything to hope and nothing to 
fear. 

A very different personage, but one 
who has rendered himself very conspi- 
cuous in our parish, is one of the old 
lady's next door neighbours. He is 
an old naval officer on half-pay, and 
his bluff and unceremonious behaviour 
disturbs the old lady's domestic eco- 
nomy, not a little. In the first place 
he will smoke cigars in the front court, 
and when he wants something to drink 
with them — which is by no means an 
uncommon circumstance— he lifts up 
the old lady's knocker with his walk- 
ing-stick, and demands to have a glass 
of table ale, handed over the rails. 
■In addition to this cool proceeding, he 
is a bit of a Jack of all trades, or to use 
his own words, " A regular Robinson 
.Crusoe ;" and nothing delights him 
better than to experimentalise on the 
old lady's property. One morning he 
got up early, and planted three or 
four roots of full-grown marigolds in 
every bed of her front garden, to the 
inconceivable astonishment of the old 
lady, who actually thought when she 
got up and looked out of the window, 
that it was some strange eruption 
which had come out in the night. 
Another time he took to pieces the 
eight-day clock on the front landing, 
under pretence of cleaning the works, 
which he put together again, by some 



7 



undiscovered process in so wonderful 
a manner, that the large hand has 
done nothing but trip up the little one 
ever since. Then he took to breeding 
silk-worms, which he would bring in 
two or three times a day, in little 
paper boxes, to show the old lady, 
generally dropping a worm or two at 
every visit. The consequence was, 
that one morning a very stout silk- 
worm was discovered in the act of 
walking up stairs — probably with the 
view of inquiring after his friends, for, 
on further inspection, it appeared that , 
some of his companions had already 
found their way to every room in the 
house. The old lady went to the sea- 
side in despair, and during her absence 
he completely effaced the name from 
her brass door-plate, in his attempts 
to polish it with aqua-fortis. 

But all this is nothing to his sedi- 
tious conduct in public life. He 
attends every vestry meeting that is 
held ; always opposes the constituted 
authorities of the parish, denounces 
the profligacy of the churchwardens, 
contests legal points against the vestry- 
clerk, will make the tax-gatherer call 
for his money till he won't call any 
longer, and then he sends it : finds 
fault with the sermon every Sunday, 
says that the organist ought to be 
ashamed of himself, offers to back 
himself for any amount to sing the 
psalms better than all the cluldren 
put together, male and female ; and, 
in short, conducts himself in the most 
turbulent and uproarious manner. 
The worst of it is, that having a high 
regard for the old lady, he wants to 
make her a convert to his views, and 
therefore walks into her little parlour 
with his newspaper in his hand, and 
talks violent politics by the hour. He 
is a charitable, open-hearted old fellow 
at bottom, after all ; so, although he 
puts the old lady a little out occasion- 
ally, they agree very well in the main, 
and she laughs as much at each feat of 
his handiwork when it is all over, as 
anybody else. 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE FOUR SISTERS. 



The row of houses in which the old 
lady and her troublesome neighbour 
reside, comprises, beyond all doubt, a 
greater number of characters within its 
circumscribed limits, than all the rest 
of the parish put together. As we 
cannot, consistently with our present 
plan, however, extend the number of 
our parochial sketches beyond six, it 
will be better, perhaps, to select the 
most peculiar, and to introduce them 
at once without further preface. 

The four Miss Willises, then, settled 
in our parish thirteen years ago. It 
is a melancholy reflection that the old 
adage, " time and tide wait for no 
man," applies with equal force to the 
fairer portion of the creation ; and 
willingly would we conceal the fact, 
that even thirteen years ago, the Miss 
Willises were far from juvenile. Our 
duty as faithful parochial chroniclers, 
however, is paramount to every other 
consideration, and we are bound to 
state, that thirteen years since, the 
authorities in matrimonial cases con- 
sidered the youngest Miss Willis in a 
very precarious state, while the eldest 
sister was positively given over, as 
being far beyond all human hope. 
Well, the Miss Willises took a lease 
of the house ; it was fresh painted and 
papered from top to bottom : the paint 
inside was all wainscoted, the marble 
all cleaned, the old grates taken down, 
and register- stoves, you could see to 
dress by, put up ; four trees were 
planted in the back garden, several 
small baskets of gravel sprinkled over 
the front one, vans of elegant furniture 
arrived, spring blinds were fitted to 
the windows, carpenters who had been 
employed in the various preparations, 
alterations, and repairs, made con- 
fidential statements to the different 
maid-servants in the row, relative to 
the magnificent scale on which the 
Miss Willises were commencing ; the 



maid-servants told their " Missises," 
the Missises told their friends, and 
vague rumours were circulated through- 
out the parish, that No. 25, in Gordon- 
place, had been taken by four maiden 
ladies of immense property. 

At last, the Miss Willises moved 
in; and then the "calling" began. 
The house was the perfection of neat- 
ness — so were the four Miss Willises. 
Every thing was formal, stiff, and 
cold — so were the four Miss Willises. 
Not a single chair of the whole set was 
ever seen out of its place — not a single 
Miss Willis of the whole four was ever 
seen out of hers. There they always 
sat, in the same places, doing precisely 
the same things at the same hour. 
The eldest Miss Willis used to knit, the 
second to draw, the two others to play 
duets on the piano. They seemed to 
have no separate existence, but to have 
made up their minds just to winter 
through life together. They were 
three long graces in drapery, with the 
addition, like a school- dinner of an- 
other long grace afterwards — the three 
fates with another sister — the Siamese 
twins multiplied by two. The eldest 
Miss Willis grew bilious — the four 
Miss Willises grew bilious immediately. 
The eldest Miss Willis grew ill-tem- 
pered and religious — the four Miss 
Willises were ill-tempered and reli- 
gious directly. Whatever the eldest 
did, the others did, and whatever any 
body else did, they all disapproved of; 
and thus they vegetated — living in 
Polar harmony among themselves, 
and, as they sometimes went out, or 
saw company " in a quiet- way" at 
home, occasionally iceing the neigh- 
bours. Three years passed over in 
this way, when an unlooked for and 
extraordinary phenomenon occurred. 
The Miss Willises showed symptoms 
of summer, the frost gradually broke 
up ; a complete thaw took place. Was 



THE FOUR SISTERS. 



3 



it possible ? one of the four Miss 
Willises was going to be married ! 

Now, where on earth the husband 
came from, by what feelings the poor 
man could have been actuated, or by 
what process of reasoning the four 
Miss Willises succeeded in persuading 
themselves that it was possible for a 
man to marry one of them, without 
marrying them all, are questions too 
profound for us to resolve : certain it 
is, however, that the visits of Mr. 
Robinson (a gentleman in a public 
office, with a good salary and a little 
property of his own, beside) were re- 
ceived — that the four Miss Willises 
were courted in due form by the said 
Mr. Robinson — that the neighbours 
were perfectly frantic in their anxiety 
to discover which of the four Miss 
Willises was the fortunate fair, and 
that the difficulty they experienced 
in solving the problem was not at all 
lessened by the announcement of the 
eldest Miss Willis, — " We are going to 
marry Mr. Robinson.' 5 

It was very extraordinary. They 
were so completely identified, the one 
with the other, that the curiosity of 
the whole row — even of the old lady 
herself — was roused almost beyond 
endurance. The subject was discussed 
at every little card-table and tea- 
drinking. The old gentleman of silk- 
worm notoriety did not hesitate to 
express his decided opinion that Mr. 
Robinson was of Eastern descent, and 
contemplated marrying the whole 
family at once ; and the row, gene- 
rally, shook their heads with consider- 
able gravity, and declared the busi- 
ness to be very mysterious. They 
hoped it might all end well; — it 
certainly had a very singular appear- 
ance, but still it would be unchari- 
table to express any opinion without 
good grounds to go upon, and certainly 
the Miss Willises were quite old enough 
to judge for themselves, and to be 
sure people ought to know their own 
business best, and so forth. 

At last, one fine morning, at a 
quarter before eight o'clock, a.m., two 
glass-coaches drove up to the Miss 
Willises' door at which Mr. Robinson 



had arrived in a cab ten minutes 
before, dressed in a light blue coat 
and double-milled kersey pantaloons, 
white neckerchief, pumps, and dress- 
gloves, his manner denoting, as ap- 
peared from the evidence of the house- 
maid at No. 23, who was sweeping 
the door-steps at the time, a consider- 
able degree of nervous excitement. It 
was also hastily reported on the same 
testimony, that the cook who opened 
the door, wore a large white bow of 
unusual dimensions, in a much smarter 
head-dress than the regulation cap to 
which the Miss Willises invariably 
restricted the somewhat excursive 
taste of female servants in general. 

The intelligence spread rapidly from 
house to house. It was quite clear 
that the eventful morning had at length 
arrived ; the whole row stationed 
themselves behind their first and 
second floor blinds, and waited the 
result in breathless expectation. 

At last the Miss Willises' door 
opened ; the door of the first glass- 
coach did the same. Two gentlemen, 
and a pair of ladies to correspond — 
friends of the family, no doubt ; up 
went the steps, bang went the door, 
off went the first glass-coach, and up 
came the second. 

The street-door opened again ; the 
excitement of the whole row increased 
■ — Mr. Robinson and the eldest Miss 
Willis. " I thought so," said the lady 
at No. 19; "I always said it was Miss 
Willis ! " — " Well, I never ! " ejacu- 
lated the young lady at No. 18 to the 
young lady at No. 17 — "Did you ever, 
dear ! " responded the young lady at 
No. 17 to the young lady at No. 18. 
u It 's too ridiculous ! " exclaimed a 
spinster of an iwicertain age, at No. 1 6, 
joining in the conversation. But who 
shall pourtray the astonishment of 
Gordon-place, when Mr. Robinson 
handed in all the Miss Willises, one 
after the other, and then squeezed 
himself into an acute angle of the 
glass-coach, which forthwith proceeded 
at a brisk pace, after the other glass- 
coach, which other glass-coach had 
itself proceeded, at a brisk pace, in the 
direction of the parish church. Who 



10 



SKETCHES BY BOZ 



shall depict the perplexity of the cler- 
gyman, when all the Miss Willises 
knelt down at the communion table, 
and repeated the responses incidental 
to the marriage service in an audible 
voice — or who shall describe the con- 
fusion which prevailed, when — even 
after the difficulties thus occasioned 
had been adjusted — all the Miss Wil- 
lises went into hysterics at the con- 
clusion of the ceremony, until the 
sacred edifice resounded with their 
united wailings ! 

As the four sisters and Mr. Robin- 
son continued to occupy the same 
house after this memorable occasion, 
and as the married sister, whoever she 
was, never appeared in public without 
the other three, we are not quite clear 
that the neighbours ever would have 
discovered the real Mrs. Robinson, but 
for a circumstance of the most gratify- 
ing description, which will happen 
occasionally in the best regulated fami- 
lies. Three quarter-days elapsed, and 
the row, on whom a new light appeared 
to have been bursting for some time, 
began to speak with a sort of implied 
confidence on the subject, and to 
wonder how Mrs. Robinson — the 
youngest Miss Willis that was — got 
on ; and servants might be seen run- 
ning up the steps, about nine or ten 
o'clock every morning, with " Mississ's 
compliments, and wishes to know how 
Mrs. Robinson finds herself this morn- 
ing ? " And the answer always was, 
'• Mrs. Robinson's compliments, and 
she 's in very good spirits, and doesn't 
find herself any worse." The piano 
was heard no longer, the knitting- 
needles were laid aside, drawing was 
neglected, and mantua-making and 
millinery, on the smallest scale imagin- 
able, appeared to have become the 
favourite amusement of the whole 
family. The parlour wasn't quite as 
tidy as it used to be, and if you called 



in the morning, you would see lying 
on a table, w r ith an old newspaper 
carelessly thrown over them, two or 
three particularly small caps, rather 
larger than if they had been made for 
a moderate-sized doll, with a small 
piece of lace, in the shape of a horse- 
shoe, let in behind : or perhaps a 
white robe, not very large in circum- 
ference, but very much out of propor- 
tion in point of length, with a little 
tucker round the top, and a frill round 
the bottom ; and once when we called, 
we saw a long white roller, with a kind 
of blue margin down each side, the 
j probable use of which, we were at a 
loss to conjecture. Then we fancied 
j that Mr. Dawson, the surgeon, &c, 
who displays a large lamp with a dif- 
ferent colour in every pane of glass, 
at the corner of the row, began to be 
knocked up at night oftener than he 
used to be ; and once we were very 
much alarmed by hearing a hackney- 
; coach stop at Mrs. Robinson's door, at 
i half-past two o'clock in the morning, 
out of which there emerged a fat old 
! woman, in a cloak and nightcap, with 
1 a bundle in one hand, and a pair of 
' pattens in the other, who looked as if 
she had been suddenly knocked up out 
of bed for some very special purpose. 

When we got up in the morning we 
saw that the knocker was tied up in an 
old white kid glove ; and we, in our 
innocence (we were in a state of 
bachelorship then), wondered what on 
earth it all meant, until we heard the 
eldest Miss Willis, in propria persona, 
say, with great dignity, in answer to 
the next inquiry, ' ; My compliments, 
and Mrs. Robinson 's doing as well as 
can be expected, and the little girl 
thrives wonderfully." And then, in 
common with the rest of the row, our 
curiosity was satisfied, and we began 
to wonder it had never occurred to us 
what the matter was, before. 



THE ELECTION FOR BEADLE. 



II 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE ELECTION FOR BEADLE. 



A great event has recently occurred 
in our parish. A contest of paramount 
interest has just terminated ; a paro- 
chial convulsion has taken place. It 
has been succeeded by a glorious 
triumph, which the country — or at 
least the parish — it is all the same — 
will long remember. We have had an 
election ; an election for beadle. The 
supporters of the old beadle system 
have been defeated in their strong 
hold, and the advocates of the great 
new beadle principles have achieved a 
proud victory. 

Our parish, which, like all other 
parishes, is a little world of its own, 
has long been divided into two parties, 
whose contentions, slumbering for a 
while, have never failed to burst forth 
with unabated vigour, on any occasion 
on which they could by possibility be 
renewed. Watching-rates, lighting- 
rates, paving - rates, sewers - rates, 
church-rates, poor's-rates — all sorts of 
rates, have been in their turns the 
subjects of a grand struggle ; and as to 
.questions of patronage, the asperity 
and determination with which they 
have been contested is scarcely 
credible. 

The leader of the official party — the 
steady advocate of the churchwardens, 
and the unflinching supporter of the 
overseers — is an old gentleman who 
lives in our row. He owns some half- 
dozen houses in it, and always walks 
on the opposite side of the way, so that 
he may be able to take in a view of 
the whole of his property at once. He 
is a tall, thin, bony man, with an in- 
terrogative nose, and little restless 
perking eyes, which appear to have 
been given him for the sole purpose of 
peeping into other people's affairs 
with. He is deeply impressed with 
the importance of our parish business, 
and prides himself, not a little, on his 
style of addressing the parishioners in 



vestry assembled. His views are 
rather confined than extensive ; his 
principles more narrow than liberal. 
He has been heard to declaim very 
loudly in favour of the liberty of the 
press, and advocates the repeal of the 
stamp duty on newspapers, because 
the daily journals who now have a 
monopoly of the public, never give 
verbatim reports of vestry meetings. 
He would not appear egotistical for 
the world, but at the same time he 
must say, that there are speeches — 
that celebrated speech of his own, on 
the emoluments of the sexton, and the 
duties of the office, for instance — which 
might be communicated to the public, 
greatly to their improvement and ad- 
vantage. 

His great opponent in public life is 
Captain Purday, the old naval officer 
on half-pay, to whom we have already 
introduced our readers. The captain 
being a determined opponent of the 
constituted authorities, whoever they 
may chance to be, and our other friend 
being their steady supporter, with an 
equal disregard of their individual 
merits, it will readily be supposed, that 
occasions for their coming into direct 
collision are neither few nor far be- 
tween. They divided the vestry four- 
teen times on a motion for heating the 
church with warm water instead of 
coals : and made speeches about liberty 
and expenditure, and prodigality and 
hot water, which threw the whole 
parish into a state of excitement. Then 
the captain, when he was on the visiting 
committee, and his opponent overseer, 
brought forward certain distinct and 
specific charges relative to the manage- 
ment of the workhouse, boldly ex- 
pressed his total want of confidence in 
the existing authorities, and moved 
for li a copy of the recipe by which the 
paupers' soup was prepared, together 
with any documents relating thereto." 



12 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



This the overseer steadily resisted ; he 
fortified himself by precedent, appealed 
to the established usage, and declined 
to produce the papers, on the ground 
of the injury that would be done to 
the public service, if documents of a 
strictly private nature, passing between 
the master of the workhouse and the 
cook, were to be thus dragged to light 
on the motion of any individual member 
of the vestry. The motion was lost by 
a majority of two; and then the 
captain, who never allows himself to 
be defeated, moved for a committee of 
inquiry into the whole subject. The 
affair grew serious : the question was 
discussed at meeting after meeting, 
and vestry after vestry ; speeches were 
made, attacks repudiated, personal de- 
fiances exchanged, explanations re- 
ceived, and the greatest excitement 
prevailed, until at last, just as the 
question was going to be finally decided, 
the vestry found that somehow or 
other, they had become entangled in a 
point of form, from which it was im- 
possible to escape with propriety. So, 
the motion was dropped, and every 
body looked extremely important, and 
seemed quite satisfied with the meri- 
torious nature of the whole proceeding. 

This was the state of affairs in our 
parish a week or two since, when Sim- 
mons, the beadle, suddenly died. The 
lamented deceased had over-exerted 
himself, a day or two previously, in 
conveying an aged female, highly in- 
toxicated, to the strong room of the 
workhouse. The excitement thus oc- 
casioned, added to a severe cold, which 
this indefatigable officer had caught in 
his capacity of director of the parish 
engine, by inadvertently playing over 
himself instead of a fire, proved too 
much for a constitution already en- 
feebled by age ; and the intelligence 
was conveyed to the Board one evening 
that Simmons had died, and left his 
respects. 

The breath was scarcely out of the 
body of the deceased functionary, when 
the field was filled with competitors for 
the vacant office, each of whom rested 
his claims to public support, entirely on 
the number and extent of his family, 



as if the office of beadle were originally 
instituted as an encouragement for the 
propagation of the human species. 
" Bung for Beadle. Five small chil- 
dren !" — " Hopkins for Beadle. Seven 
small children ! ! " — " Timkins for 
Beadle. Nine small children ! ! ! " 
Such were the placards in large black 
letters on a white ground, which were 
plentifully pasted on the walls, and 
posted in the windows of the principal 
shops. Timkins's success was con- 
sidered certain : several mothers of 
families half promised their votes, and 
the nine small children would have 
run over the course, but for the pro- 
duction of another placard, announcing 
the appearance of a still more meri- 
torious candidate. " Spruggins for 
Beadle. Ten small children (two of 
them twins), and a wife ! ! !" There 
was no resisting this ; ten small chil- 
dren would have been almost irre- 
sistible in themselves, without the 
twins, but the touching parenthesis 
about that interesting production of 
nature, and the still more touching 
allusion to Mrs. Spruggins, must 
ensure success. Spruggins was the 
favourite at once, and the appearance 
of his lady, as she went about to solicit 
votes (which encouraged confident 
hopes of a still further addition to the 
house of Spruggins at no remote period), 
increased the general prepossession in 
his favour. The other candidates, 
Bung alone excepted, resigned in 
despair. The day of election was 
fixed ; and the canvass proceeded with 
briskness and perseverance on both 
sides. 

The members of the vestry could 
not be supposed to escape the conta- 
gious excitement inseparable from the 
occasion. The majority of the lady 
inhabitants of the parish declared at 
once for Spruggins ; and the quondam 
overseer took the same side, on the 
ground that men with large families 
always had been elected to the office, 
and that although he must admit, 
that, in other respects, Spruggins was 
the least qualified candidate of the 
two, still it was an old practice, and 
he saw no reason why an old practice 



THE ELECTION FOR BEADLE. 



13 



should be departed from. This was 
enough for the captain. He imme- 
diately sided with Bung, canvassed 
for him personally in all directions, 
wrote squibs ou Spruggins, and got 
his butcher to skewer them up on 
conspicuous joints in his shop-front ; 
frightened his neighbour, the old lady, 
into a palpitation of the heart, by his 
awful denunciations of Spruggins's 
party ; and bounced in and out, and 
up and down, and backwards and 
forwards, until all the sober inhabit- 
ants of the parish thought it inevitable 
that he must die of a brain fever, long 
before the election began. 

The day of election arrived. It was 
no longer an individual struggle, but a 
party contest between the ins and outs. 
The question was, whether the wither- 
ing influence of the overseers, the 
domination of the churchwardens, and 
the blighting despotism of the vestry- 
clerk, should be allowed to render the 
election of beadle a form — a nullity : 
whether they should impose a vestry- 
elected beadle on the parish, to do 
their bidding and forward their views, 
or whether the parishioners, fearlessly 
asserting their undoubted rights, should 
elect an independent beadle of their 
own. 

The nomination was fixed to take 
place in the vestry, but so great was 
the throng of anxious spectators, that 
it was found necessary to adjourn to 
the church, where the ceremony com- 
menced with due solemnity. The ap- 
pearance of the churchwardens and 
overseers, and the ex-churchwardens 
and ex-overseers, with Spruggins in 
the rear, excited general attention. 
Spruggins was a little thin man, in 
rusty black, with a long pale face, and 
a countenance expressive of care and 
fatigue, which might either be attri- 
buted to the extent of his family or 
the anxiety of his feelings. His oppo- 
nent appeared hi a cast-off coat of the 
captain's — a blue coat with bright 
buttons : white trousers, and that 
description of shoes familiarly known 
by the appellation of "high-lows." 
There was a serenity in the open 
countenance of Bung — a kind of moral 



dignity in his confident air — an " I 
wish you may get it " sort of expres- 
sion in his eye — which infused anima- 
tion into his supporters, and evidently 
dispirited his opponents. 

The ex-churchwarden rose to pro- 
pose Thomas Spruggins for beadle. 
He had known him long. He had had 
his eye upon him closely for years ; 
he had watched him with twofold 
vigilance for months. (A parishioner 
here suggested that this might be 
termed " taking a double sight," but 
the observation was drowned in loud 
cries of " Order ! ") He would 
repeat that he had had his eye upon 
him for years, and this he would say, 
that a more well-conducted, a more 
well-behaved, a more sober, a more 
quiet man, with a more well-regulated 
mind he had never met with. A man 
with a larger family he had never 
known (cheers). The parish required 
a man who could be depended on 
(" Hear ! " from the Spruggins side, 
answered by ironical cheers from the 
Bung party). Such a man he now 
proposed (" No," " Yes "). He would 
not allude to individuals (the ex- 
churchwarden continued, in the cele- 
brated negative style adopted by great 
speakers). He would not advert to a 
gentleman who had once held a high 
rank in the service of his majesty ; 
he would not say, that that gentleman 
was no gentleman ; he would not 
assert that that man was no man ; he 
would not say, that he Was a turbulent 
parishioner ; he would not say, that 
he had grossly misbehaved himself, 
not only on this, but on all former 
occasions ; he would not say, that he 
was one of those discontented and 
treasonable spirits, who carried confu- 
sion and disorder wherever they went ; 
he would not say, that he harboured 
in his heart envy, and hatred, and 
malice, and all uncharitableness. No ! 
He wished to have everything com- 
fortable and pleasant, and therefore, 
he would say — nothing about him 
(cheers). 

The captain replied in a similar 
parliamentary style. He would not 
say, he was astonished at the speech 



u 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



they had just heard ; he would not 
say, he was disgusted (cheers). He 
would not retort the epithets which 
had been hurled against him (renewed 
cheering) ; he would not allude to 
men once in office, but now happily 
out of it, who had mismanaged the 
workhouse, ground the paupers, 
diluted the beer, slack-baked the 
bread, boned the meat, heightened the 
work, and lowered the soup (tremen- 
dous cheers). He would not ask what 
such men deserved (a voice, " Nothing 
a-day, and find themselves ! "). He 
would not say, that one burst of 
general indignation should drive them 
from the parish they polluted with 
their presence (" Give it him ! "). He 
would not allude to the unfortunate 
man who had been proposed — he 
would not say, as the vestry's tool, but 
as Beadle. He would not advert to 
that individual's family ; he would not 
say, that nine children, twins, and a 
wife, were very bad examples for 
pauper imitation (loud cheers). He 
would not advert in detail to the quali- 
fications of Bung. The man stood 
before him, and he would not say in 
his presence, what he might be dis- 
posed to say of him, if he were absent. 
(Here Mr. Bung telegraphed to a 
friend near him, under cover of his 
hat, by contracting his left eye, and 
applying his right thumb to the tip of 
his nose.) It had been objected to 
Bung that he had only five children 
(" Hear, hear ! " from the opposi- 
tion). Well ; he had yet to learn 
that the legislature had affixed any 
precise amount of infantine qualifica- 
tion to the office of beadle ; but taking 
it for granted that an extensive family 
were a great requisite, he entreated 
them to look to facts, and compare 
data, about which there could be no 
mistake. Bung was 35 years of age. 
Spruggins — of whom he wished to 
speak with all possible respect — was 
50. Was it not more than possible — 
was it not very probable — that by the 
time Bung attained the latter age, he 
might see around him a family, even 
exceeding in number and extent, that 
to which Spruggins at present laid 



claim (deafening cheers and waving of 
handkerchiefs) \ The captain con- 
cluded, amidst loud applause, by calling 
upon the parishioners to sound the 
tocsin, rush to the poll, free them- 
selves from dictation, or be slaves 
for ever. 

On the following day the polling 
began, and we never have had such a 
bustle in our parish since we got up 
our famous anti-slavery petition, 
which was such an important one, that 
the House of Commons ordered it to 
be printed, on the motion of the mem- 
ber for the district. The captain 
engaged two hackney-coaches and a 
cab for Bung's people — the cab for 
j the drunken voters, and the two 
coaches for the old ladies, the greater 
portion of whom, owing to the cap- 
tain's impetuosity, were driven up to 
the poll and home again, before they 
recovered from their flurry sufficiently 
to know, with any degree of clearness, 
what they had been doing. The oppo- 
site party wholly neglected these pre- 
cautions, and the consequence was. 
that a great many ladies who were 
walking leisurely up to the church — 
for it was a very hot day — to vote for 
Spruggins, were artfully decoyed into 
the coaches, and voted for Bung. The 
captain's arguments, too, had produced 
considerable effect : the attempted 
influence of the vestry produced a 
greater. A threat of exclusive deal- 
ing was clearly established against the 
vestry-clerk — a case of heartless and 
profligate atrocity-. It appeared that 
the delinquent had been in the habit 
of purchasing six penn'orth of muffins, 
weekly, from an old woman who rents 
a small house in the parish, and resides 
among the original settlers ; on her 
last weekly visit, a message was con- 
veyed to her through the medium of 
the cook, couched in mysterious terms, 
but indicating with sufficient clearness, 
that the vestry-clerk's appetite for 
muffins, in future, depended entirely 
on her vote on the beadleship. This 
was sufficient : the stream had been 
turning previously, and the impulse 
thus administered directed its final 
course. The Bung party ordered one 



THE BROKER'S MAN. 



1.3 



shilling's-worth of muffins weekly for 
the remainder of the old woman's 
natural life ; the parishioners were 
loud in their exclamations ; and the 
fate of Spruggins was sealed. 

It was in vain that the twins were 
exhibited in dresses of the same 
pattern, and night-caps to match, at 



the church door : the boy in Mrs. 
Spruggins's right arm, and the girl in 
her left — even Mrs. Spruggins herself 
failed to be an object of sympathy any 
longer. The majority attained by 
Bung on the gross poll was four hun- 
dred and twenty-eight, and the cause 
of the parishioners ti'iumphed. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE BROKERS MAN. 



The excitement of the late election 
has subsided, and our parish being 
once again restored to a state of 
comparative tranquillity, we are en- 
abled to devote our attention to those 
parishioners who take little share in 
our party contests or in the turmoil 
and bustle of public life. And we 
feel sincere pleasure in acknowledging 
here, that in collecting materials for 
this task we have been greatly assisted 
by Mr. Bung himself, who has im- 
posed on us a debt of obligation which 
we fear we can never repay. The 
life of this gentleman has been one of 
a very chequered description : he has 
undergone transitions — not from grave 
to gay, for he never was grave — not 
from lively to severe, for severity 
forms no part of his disposition ; his 
fluctuations have been between poverty 
in the extreme, and poverty modified, 
or, to use his own emphatic language, 
" between nothing to eat and just half 
enough." He is not, as he forcibly 
remarks, " One of those fortunate men 
who, if they were to dive under one 
side of a barge stark-naked, would 
come up on the other with a new suit 
of clothes on, and a ticket for soup in 
the waistcoat-pocket :" neither is he 
one of those, whose spirit has been 
broken beyond redemption by mis- 
fortune and want. He is just one of 
the careless, good-for-nothing, happy 
fellows, who float, cork-like on the 
surface, for the world to play at hockey 
with : knocked here, and there, and 



every where : now to the right, then 
to the left, again up in the air, and 
anon to the bottom, but always re- 
appearing and bounding with the 
stream buoyantly and merrily along. 
Some few months before he was pi*e- 
vailed upon to stand a contested elec- 
tion for the office of beadle, necessity 
attached him to the service of a broker; 
and on the opportunities he here 
acquired of ascertaining the condition 
of most of the poorer inhabitants of 
the parish, his patron, the captain, 
first grounded his claims to public 
support. Chance threw the man in 
our way a short time since. We 
were, in the first instance, attracted 
by his prepossessing impudence at the 
election ; we were not surprised, on 
further acquaintance, to find him a 
shrewd knowing fellow, with no incon- 
siderable power of observation ; and, 
after conversing with him a little, 
were somewhat struck (as we dare say' 
our readers have frequently been in 
other cases) with the power some men 
seem to have, not only of sympathising 
with, but to all appearance of under- 
standing feelings to which they them- 
selves are entire strangers. We had 
been expressing to the new functionai'y 
our surprise that he should ever have 
served in the capacity to which wo 
have just adverted, when we gradually 
led him into one or two professional 
anecdotes. As we are induced to think, 
on reflection, that they will tell better 
in nearly his own words, than with any 



16 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



attempted embellishments of ours, we 
will at once entitle them 

MR. BUNG'S NARRATIVE. 

" It 's very true, as you say, sir," 
Mr. Bung commenced, "that a broker's 
man's is not a life to be envied ; and 
in course you know as well as I do, 
though you don't say it, that people 
hate and scout 'em because they 're the 
ministers of wretchedness, like, to 
poor people. But what could I do, 
sir ? The thing was no worse because 
I did it, instead of somebody else ; 
and if putting me in possession of a 
house would put me in possession of 
three and sixpence a day, and levying 
a distress on another man's goods 
would relieve my distress and that of 
my family, it can't be expected but 
what I'd take the job and go through 
with it. I never liked it, God knows ; 
I always looked out for something 
else, and the moment I got other 
work to do, I left it. If there is any- 
thing wrong in being the agent in such 
matters — not the principal, mind you 
— I 'm sure the business, to a beginner 
like I was, at all events, carries its own 
punishment along with it. I wished 
again and again that the people would 
only blow me up, or pitch into me — 
that I wouldn't have minded, it 's all in 
my way ; but it 's the being shut up by 
yourself in one room for five days, 
without so much as an old newspaper 
to look at, or anything to see out o' 
the winder but the roofs and chimneys 
at the back of the house, or anything 
to listen to, but the ticking, perhaps, 
of an old Dutch clock, the sobbing of 
the missis, now and then, the low talk- 
ing of friends in the next room, who 
speak in whispers, lest ' the man ' 
should overhear them, or perhaps the 
occasional opening of the door, as a 
child peeps in to look at you, and then 
runs half-frightened away — It's all 
this, that makes you feel sneaking 
somehow, and ashamed of yourself ; 
and then, if it's winter time, they just 
give you fire enough to make you 
think you'd like more, and bring in 
your grub as if they wished it 'ud 
choke you — as I dare say they do, for 



the matter of that, most heartily. If 
they're very civil, they make you up a 
bed in the room at night, and if they 
don't, your master sends one in for 
you ; but there you are, without being 
washed or shaved all the time, shunned 
by everybody, and spoken to by no 
one, unless some one comes in at 
dinner time, and asks you whether 
you want any more, in a tone as much 
as to say ' I hope you don't,' or, in 
the evening, to inquire whether you 
wouldn't rather have a candle, after 
you've been sitting in the dark half 
the night. When I was left in this 
way, I used to sit, think, think, think- 
ing, till I felt as lonesome as a kitten 
in a wash-house copper with the lid 
on; but I believe the old brokers' 
men who are regularly trained to it, 
never think at all. I have heard some 
on 'em say, indeed, that they don't 
know how ! 

" I put in a good many distresses in 
my time (continued Mr. Bung), and in 
course I wasn't long in finding, that 
some people are not as much to be 
pitied as others are, and that people 
with good incomes who get into diffi- 
culties, which they keep patching up 
day after day, and week after week, 
get so used to these sort of things in 
time, that at last they come scarcely to 
feel them at all. I remember the very 
first place I was put in possession of, 
was a gentleman's house in this parish 
here, that every body would suppose 
couldn't help having money if he tried. 
I went with old Fixem, my old master, 
'bout half arter eight in the morning ; 
rang the area-bell ; servant in livery 
opened the door: ' Governor at home V 
— ' Yes, he is,' says the man; ' but he's 
breakfasting just now.' ' Never mind,' 
says Fixem, ' just you tell him there's 
a gentleman here, as wants to speak 
to him partickler.' So the servant he 
opens his eyes, and stares about him, 
all ways — looking for the gentleman 
as it struck me, for I don't think any- 
body but a man as was stone-blind 
would mistake Fixem for one ; and as 
for me, I was as seedy as a cheap 
cowcumber. Hows'ever, he turns 
round, and goes to the breakfast- 



THE BROKER'S MAN. 



17 



parlour, which was a little snug sort 
of room at the end of the passage, 
and Fixem (as we always did in that 
profession), without waiting to be 
announced, walks in arter him, and 
before the servant could get out — 
< Please, sir, here 's a man as wants to 
speak to you,' looks in at the door as 
familiar and pleasant as may be. 
' Who the devil are you, and how dare 
vou walk into a gentleman's house 
without leave V says the master, as 
fierce as a bull in fits. « My name, 1 
says Fixem, winking to the master to 
send the servant away, and putting 
the warrant into his hands folded up 
like a note, ' My name 's Smith,' says 
he, ' and I called from Johnson's about 
that business of Thompson's' — ' Oh,' 
says the other, quite down on him 
directly, * How is Thompson ?' says 
he ; ' Pray sit down, Mr. Smith : 
John, leave the room.' Out went 
the servant ; and the gentleman and 
Fixem looked at one another till they 
couldn't look any longer, and then 
they varied the amusements by look- 
ing at me, who had been standing on 
the mat all this time. ' Hundred and 
fifty pounds, I see,' said the gentleman 
at last. ' Hundred and fifty pound,' 
said Fixem, ' besides cost of levy, 
sheriff's poundage, and all other inci- 
dental expenses.' — * Urn,' says the 
gentleman, ' I shan't be able to settle 
this before to-morrow afternoon.' — 
* Very sorry ; but I shall be obliged 
to leave my man here till then,' re- 
plies Fixem, pretending to look very 
miserable over it. * That 's very un- 
fort'nate,' says the gentleman, 'for I 
have got a large party here to-night, 
and I 'm ruined if those fellows of mine 
get an inkling of the matter — just step 
here, Mr. Smith,' says he, after a short 
pause. So Fixem walks with him up 
to the window, and after a good deal 
of whispering, and a little chinking of 
suverins, and looking at me, he comes 
back and says, ' Bung, you 're a handy 
fellow, and very honest I know. This 
gentleman wants an assistant to clean 
the plate and wait at table to-day, and 
if you 're not particularly engaged,' 
says old Fixem, grinning like mad, 
No. 174. < 



and shoving a couple of suverins into 
my hand, * he'll be very glad to avail 
himself of your services.' Well, I 
laughed : and the gentleman laughed, 
and we all laughed ; and I went home 
and cleaned myself, leaving Fixem 
there, and when I went back, Fixem 
went away, and I polished up the 
plate, and waited at table, and gam- 
moned the servants, and nobody had 
the least idea I was in possession, 
though it very nearly came out after 
all ; for one of the last gentlemen who 
remained, came down stairs into the 
hall where I was sitting pretty late at 
night, and putting half-a-crown into 
my hand, says, ' Here my man,' says he, 
' run and get me a coach, will you V 
I thought it was a do, to get me out of 
the house, and was just going to say 
so, sulkily enough, when the gentle- 
man (who was up to everything) came 
running down stairs, as if he was in 
great anxiety. < Bung,' says he, pre- 
tending to be in a consuming passion. 
'Sir,' says I. 'Why the devil an't' 
you looking after that plate V — ' I was 
just going to send him for a coach for 
me,' says the other gentleman. ' And I 
was just a going to say,' says I — ' Any 
body else, my dear fellow,' interrupts 
the master of the house, pushing me 
down the passage to get out of the way 
— 'any body else; but I have put this 
man in possession of all the plate and 
valuables, and I cannot allow him on 
any consideration whatever, to leave 
the house. Bung, you scoundrel, go 
and count those forks in the breakfast- 
parlour instantly.' You may be sure 
I went laughing pretty hearty when I 
found it was all right. The money 
was paid next 'day, with the addition 
of something else for myself, and that 
was the best job that I (and I suspect 
old Fixem too) ever got in that line. 

" But this is the bright side of the 
picture, sir, after all," resumed Mr. 
Bung, laying aside the knowing look, 
and flash air, with which he had re- 
peated the previous anecdote — " and 
I 'm sorry to say, it 's the side one 
sees very, very, seldom, in comparison 
with the dark one. The civility which 
money will purchase, is rarely ex- 
2 



13 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



tended to those who have none ; and 
there 's a consolation even in being 
able to patch up one difficulty, to- make 
way for another, to which very poor 
people are strangers. I was once put 
into a house down George's-yard — that 
little dirty court at the back of the 
gas-works ; and I never shall forget 
the misery of them people, dear me ! 
It was a . distress for half a year's 
rent — two pound ten I think. There 
was only two rooms in the house, and 
as there was no passage, the lodgers 
up stairs always went through the 
room of the people of the house, as 
they passed in and out ; and every 
time they did so — which, on the ave- 
rage, was about four times every 
quarter of an hour — they blowed up 
quite frightful : for their things had 
been seized too, and included in the 
inventory. There was a little piece 
of enclosed dust in front of the house, 
with a cinder-path leading up to the 
door, and an open rain-water butt on 
one side. A dirty striped curtain, on 
a very slack string, hung in the win- 
dow, and a little triangular bit of 
broken looking-glass rested on the sill 
inside. I suppose it was meant for 
the people's use, but their appearance 
was so wretched, and so miserable, 
that I'm certain they never could have 
plucked up courage to look themselves 
in the face a second time, if they sur- 
vived the fright of doing so once. 
There was two or three chairs, that 
might have been worth, in their best 
days, from eightpence to a shilling 
a-piece ; a small deal table, an old 
corner cupboard with nothing in it, 
and one of those bedsteads which turn 
up half way, and lea^e the bottom 
legs sticking out for you to knock 
your head against, or hang your hat 
upon ; no bed, no bedding. There 
was an old sack, by way of rug, before 
the fire-place, and four or five children 
were grovelling about, among the sand 
on the floor. The execution was only 
put in, to get 'em out of the house, for 
there was nothing to take to pay the 
expenses ; and here I stopped for 
three days, though that was a mere 
form too : for, in course, I knew, and 



we all knew, they could never pay the 
money. In one of the chairs, by the 
side of the place where the fire ought 
to have been, was an old 'ooman — the 
ugliest and dirtiest I ever see — who 
sat rocking herself backwards and 
forwards, backwards and forwards, 
without once stopping, except for an 
instant now and then, to clasp together 
the withered hands which, with these 
exceptions, she kept constantly rub- 
bing upon her knees, just raising and 
depressing her fingers convulsively, in 
time to the rocking of the chair. On 
the other side sat the mother with an 
infant in her arms, which cried till it 
cried itself to sleep, and when it 'woke, 
cried till it cried itself off again. The 
old 'ooman's voice I never heard : she 
seemed completely stupified ; and as 
to the mother's, it would have been 
better if she had been so too, for 
misery had changed her to a devil. 
If you had heard how she cursed the 
little naked children as was rolling on 
the floor, and seen how savagely she 
struck the infant when it cried with 
hunger, you 'd have shuddered as 
much as I did. There they remained 
all the time : the children ate a morsel 
of bread once or twice, and I gave 
'em best part of the dinners my missis 
brought me, but the woman ate no- 
thing ; they never even laid on the 
bedstead, nor was the room swept or 
cleaned all the time. The neighbours 
were all too poor themselves to take 
any notice of 'em, but from what I 
could make out from the abuse of the 
woman up stairs, it seemed the hus- 
band had been transported a few 
weeks before. When the time was 
up, the landlord and old Fixem too. 
got rather frightened about the family, 
and so they made a stir about it, and 
had 'em taken to the workhouse. They 
sent the sick couch for the old 'ooman, 
and Simmons took the children away 
at night. The old 'ooman went into 
the infirmary, and very soon died. 
The children are all in the house to 
this day, and very comfortable they 
are in comparison. As to the mother, 
there was no taming her at all. She 
had been a quiet, hard-working woman, 



THE BROKER'S MAN. 



19 



I believe, but lier misery had actually 
drove her wild ; so after she had been 
sent to the house of correction half-a- 
dozen times, for throwing inkstands at 
the overseers, blaspheming the church- 
wardens, and smashing everybody as 
come near her, she burst a bloodves- 
sel one mornin', and died too ; and a 
happy release it was, both for herself 
and the old paupers, male and female, 
which she used to tip over in all di- 
rections, as if they were so many 
skittles, and she the ball. 

" Now this was bad enough," re- 
sumed Mr. Bung, taking a half-step 
towards the door, as if to intimate 
that he had nearly concluded. " This 
was bad enough, but there was a sort 
of quiet misery — if you understand 
what I mean by that, sir — about a 
lady at one house I was put into, as 
touched me a good deal more. It 
doesn't matter where it was exactly : 
indeed, I 'd rather not say, but it was 
the same sort o' job. I went with 
Fixem in the usual way — there was a 
year's rent in arrear ; a very small 
servant-girl opened the door, and three 
or four fine-looking little children was 
in the front parlour we were shown 
into, which was very clean, but very 
scantily furnished, much like the 
children themselves. ' Bung,' says 
Fixem to me, in a low voice, when we 
were left alone for a minute, i I know 
something about this here family, and 
my opinion is, it 's no go.' * Do you 
think they can't settle % ' says I, quite 
anxiously ; for I liked the looks of 
them children. Fixem shook his 
head, and was just about to reply, 
when the door opened, and in came a 
lady, as white as ever I see any one 
in my days, except about the eyes ; 
which were red with crying. She 
walked in, as firm as I could have 
done ; shut the door carefully after 
her, and sat herself down with a face 
as composed as if it was made of stone. 
* What is the matter, gentlemen ? ' 
says she, in a surprisin' steady voice. 
' Is this an execution ? ' — ' It is, mum,' 
says Fixem. The lady looked at him 
as steady as ever : she didn't seem to 
have understood him. ' It is, mum,' 



says Fixem again ; ' this is my war- 
rant of distress, mum,' says he, hand- 
ing it over as polite as if it was a 
newspaper which had been bespoke 
arter the next gentleman. 

" The lady's lip trembled as she 
took the printed paper. She cast her 
eye over it, and old Fixem began to 
explain the form, but I saw she wasn't 
reading it, plain enough, poor thing. 
' Oh, my God !' says she, suddenly 
a-bursting out crying, letting the war- 
rant fall, and hiding her face in her 
hands. ' Oh, my God ! what will be- 
come of us !' The noise she made, 
brought in a young lady of about 
nineteen or twenty, who, I suppose, 
had been a-listening at the door, and 
who had got a little boy in her arms : 
she sat him down in the lady's lap, 
without speaking, and she hugged the 
poor little fellow to her bosom, and 
cried over him, 'till even old Fixem 
put on his blue spectacles to hide the 
two tears, that was a-trickling down, 
one on each side of his dirty face. 
1 Now, dear ma,' says the young lady, 
1 you know how much you have borne. 
For all our sakes — for pa's sake,' says 
she, * don't give way to this ! ' — e No, 
no, I won't ! ' says the lady, gathering 
herself up hastily, and drying her 
eyes ; ' I am very foolish, but I 'm 
better now — much better.' And then 
she roused herself up, went with us 
into every room while we took the 
inventory, opened all the drawers of 
her own accord, sorted the children's 
little clothes to make the work easier ; 
and, except doing every thing in a 
strange sort of hurry, seemed as calm 
and composed as if nothing had hap- 
pened. When we came down stairs 
again, she hesitated a minute or two, 
and at last says, ' Gentlemen,' says she, 
' I am afraid I have done wrong, and 
perhaps it may bring you into trouble. 
I secreted just now,' she says, 'the 
only trinket I have left in the world — 
here it is.' So she lays down on the 
table, a little miniature mounted in 
gold. ' It 's a miniature,' she says, 
' of my poor dear father ! I little 
thought once, that I should ever thank 
God for depriving me of the original, 
c2 



20 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



but I do, and have done for years 
back, most fervently. Take it away, 
sir,' she says, ' it 's a face that never 
turned from me in sickness or distress, 
and I can hardly bear to turn from it 
now, when, God knows, I suffer both 
in no ordinary degree.' I couldn't 
say nothing, but I raised my head 
from the inventory which I was filling 
up, and looked at Fixem ; the old 
fellow nodded to me significantly, so I 
ran my pen through the ' Mini ' I had 
just written, and left the miniature on 
the table. 

" Well, sir, to make short of a long 
story, I was left in possession, and in 
possession I remained ; and though I 
was an ignorant man, and the master 
of the house a clever one, I saw what 
he never did, but what he would give 
worlds now (if he had 'em) to have 
seen in time. I saw, sir, that his wife 
was wasting away, beneath cares of 
which she never complained, and griefs 
she never told. I saw that she was 
dying before his eyes ; I knew that 
one exertion from him might have 
saved her, but he never made it. I 
don't blame him: I don't think he 
could rouse himself. She had so long 
anticipated all his wishes, and acted 
for him, that he was a lost man when 
left to himself. I used to think when 
I caught sight of her, in the clothes 
she used to wear, which looked shabby 
even upon her, and would have been 



scarcely decent on any one else, that 
if I was a gentleman it would wring 
my very heart to see the woman that 
was a smart and merry girl when I 
courted her, so altered through her 
love for me. Bitter cold and damp 
weather it was, yet, though her dress 
was thin, and her shoes none of the 
best, during the whole three days, from 
morning to night, she was out of doors 
running about to try and raise the 
money. The money was raised, and 
the execution was paid out. The 
whole family crowded into the room 
where I was, when the money arrived. 
The father was quite happy as the in- 
convenience was removed — I dare say 
he didn't know how ; the children 
looked merry and cheerful again ; the 
eldest girl was bustling about, making 
preparations for the first comfortable 
meal they had had since the distress 
was put in ; and the mother looked 
pleased to see them all so. But if 
ever I saw death in a woman's face, I 
saw it in hers that night. 

" I was right, sir," continued Mr. 
Bung, hurriedly passing his coat- 
sleeve over his face, " the family grew 
more prosperous, and good fortune 
arrived. But it Avas too late. Those 
children are motherless now, and their 
father would give up all he has since 
gained — house, home, goods, money : 
all that he has, or ever can have, to 
restore the wife he has lost." 



THE LADIES' SOCIETIES. 



21 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE LADIES' SOCIETIES. 



Our Parish is very prolific in ladies' 
charitable institutions. In winter, 
when wet feet are common, and colds 
not scarce, we have the ladies' soup 
distribution society, the ladies' coal 
distribution society, and the ladies' 
blanket distribution society ; in sum- 
mer, when stone fruits nourish and 
stomach aches prevail, we have the 
ladies' dispensary, and the ladies' sick 
visitation committee ; and all the year 
round we have the ladies' child's exami- 
nation society, the ladies' bible and 
prayer-book circulation society, and 
the ladies' childbed-linen monthly loan 
society. The two latter are decidedly 
the most important ; whether they 
are productive of more benefit than 
the rest, is not for us to say, but we 
can take upon ourselves to affirm, with 
the utmost solemnity, that they create 
a greater stir and more bustle, than 
all the others put together. 

We should be disposed to affirm, on 
the first blush of the matter, that the 
bible and prayer-book society is not 
so popular as the childbed-linen 
society ; the bible and prayer-book 
society has, however, considerably 
increased in importance within the 
last year or two, having derived some 
adventitious aid from the factious op- 
position of the child's examination 
society ; which factious opposition 
originated in manner following : — 
When the young curate was popular, 
and all the unmarried ladies in the 
parish took a serious turn, the charity 
children all at once became objects of 
peculiar and especial interest. The 
three Miss Browns (enthusiastic ad- 
mirers of the curate) taught, and 
exercised, and examined, and re- 
examined the unfortunate children, 
until the boys grew pale, and the girls 
consumptive with study and fatigue. 
The three Miss Browns stood it out 
very well, because they relieved each 



other ; but the children, having no 
relief at all, exhibited decided symp- 
toms of weariness and care. The 
unthinking part of the parishioners 
laughed at all this, but the more re- 
flective portion of the inhabitants 
abstained from expressing any opinion 
on the subject until that of the curate 
had been clearly ascertained. 

The opportunity was not long 
wanting. The curate preached a 
charity sermon on behalf of the charity 
school, and in the charity sermon 
aforesaid, expatiated in glowing terms 
on the praiseworthy and indefatigable 
exertions of certain estimable indivi- 
duals. Sobs were heard to issue from 
the three Miss Browns' pew ; the 
pew-opener of the division was seen to 
hurry down the centre aisle to the 
vestry door, and to return immediately, 
bearing a glass of water in her hand. 
A low moaning ensued ; two more 
pew-openers rushed to the spot, and 
the three Miss Browns, each supported 
by a pew-opener, were led out of the 
church, and led in again after the 
lapse of five minutes with white pocket- 
handkerchiefs to their eyes, as if they 
had been attending a funeral in the 
churchyard adjoining. If any doubt 
had for a moment existed, as to whom 
the allusion was intended to apply, it 
was at once removed. The wish to 
enlighten the charity children became 
universal, and the three Miss Browns 
were unanimously besought to divide 
the school into classes, and to assign 
each class to the superintendence of 
two young ladies. 

A little learning is a dangerous thing, 
but a little patronage is more so ; the 
three Miss Browns appointed all the 
old maids, and carefully excluded the 
young ones. Maiden aunts triumphed, 
mammas were reduced to the lowest 
depth of despair, and there is no 
telling in what act of violence the 



22 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



general indignation against the three 
Miss Browns might have vented itself 
had not a perfectly providential occur- 
rence changed the tide of public feeling. 
Mrs Johnson Parker, the mother of 
seven extremely fine girls — all unmar- 
ried — hastily reported to several other 
mammas of 'several other unmarried 
families, that five old men, six old 
women, and children innumerable, in 
the free seats near her pew, were in 
the habit of coming to church every 
Sunday, without either bible or prayer- 
book. Was this to be borne in a civi- 
lised country ? Could such things be 
tolerated in a Christian land ? Never ! 
A ladies' bible and prayer-book distri- 
bution society was instantly formed : 
president, Mrs. Johnson Parker ; 
treasurers, auditors, and secretary, 
the Misses Johnson Parker : subscrip- 
tions were entered into, books were 
bought, all the free-seat people pro- 
vided therewith, and when the first 
lesson was given out, on the first Sun- 
day succeeding these events, there was 
such a dropping of books, and rustling 
of leaves, that it was morally impos- 
sible to hear one word of the service 
for five minutes afterwards. 

The three Miss Browns, and their 
party, saw the approaching danger, 
and endeavoured to avert it by ridi- 
cule and sarcasm. Neither the old 
men nor the old women could read 
their books, now they had got them, 
said the three Miss Browns. Never 
mind ; they could learn, replied Mrs. 
Johnson Parker. The children 
couldn't read either, suggested the 
three Miss Browns. No matter ; 
they could be taught, retorted Mrs. 
Johnson Parker. A balance of parties 
took place. The Miss Browns pub- 
licly examined — popular feeling in- 
clined to the child's examination 
society. The Miss Johnson Parkers 
publicly distributed — a reaction took 
place in favour of the prayer-book 
distribution. A feather would have 
turned the scale, and a feather did 
turn it. A missionary returned from 
the West Indies ; he was to be pre- 
sented to the Dissenters' Missionary 
Society on his marriage with a wealthy 



widow. Overtures were made to the 
Dissenters by the Johnson Parkers. 
Their object was the same, and why 
not have a joint meeting of the two 
societies ? The proposition was ac- 
cepted. The meeting was duly 
heralded by public announcement, and 
the room was crowded to suffocation. 
The missionary appeared on the plat- 
form ; he was hailed with enthusiasm. 
He repeated a dialogue he had heard 
between two negroes, behind a hedge, 
on the subject of distribution societies ; 
the approbation was tumultuous. He 
gave an imitation of the two negroes 
in broken English ; the roof was rent 
with applause. From that period we 
date (with one trifling exception) a 
daily increase in the popularity of the 
distribution society, and an increase of 
popularity, which the feeble and im- 
potent opposition of the examination 
party, has only tended to augment. 

Now, the great points about the 
childbed-linen monthly loan society 
are, that it is less dependent on the 
fluctuations of public opinion than 
either the distribution or the child's 
examination ; and that, come what 
may, there is never any lack of objects 
on which to exercise its benevolence. 
Our parish is a very populous one, 
and, if any thing, contributes, we 
should be disposed to say, rather 
more than its due share to the aggregate 
amount of births in the metropolis 
and its environs. The consequence is, 
that the monthly loan society flourishes, 
and invests its members with a most 
enviable amount of bustling patronage. 
The society (whose only notion of 
dividing time, would appear to be its 
allotment into months) holds monthly 
tea-drinkings, at which the monthly 
report is received, a secretary elected 
for the month ensuing, and such of 
the monthly boxes as may not happen 
to be out on loan for the month, care- 
fully examined. 

We were never present at one of 
these meetings, from all of which it is 
scarcely necessary to say, gentlemen 
are carefully excluded ; but Mr. Bung 
has been called before the board once 
or twice, and we have his authority 




THE LADIES' SOCIETIES. 



23 



)r stating, that its proceedings are 
jondacted with great order and regu- 
larity : not more than four members 
being allowed to speak at one time on 
any pretence whatever. The regular 
committee is composed exclusively of 
married ladies, but a vast number of 
young unmarried ladies of from 
eighteen to twenty-five years of age, 
respectively, are admitted as honorary 
members, partly because they are 
very r-ieful in replenishing the boxes, 
and visiting the confined ; partly be- 
cause it is highly desirable that they 
should be initiated, at an early period, 
into the more serious and matronly 
duties of after-life ; and partly, because 
prudent mammas have not unfre- 
quently been known to turn this cir- 
cumstance to wonderfully good account 
in matrimonial speculations. 

In addition to the loan of the monthly 
boxes (which are always painted blue, 
with the name of the society in large 
white letters on the lid), the society 
dispense occasional grants of beef-tea, 
and a composition of warm beer, spice, 
eggs, and sugar, commonly known by 
the name of " caudle," to its patients. 
And here again the services of the 
honorary members are called into 
requisition, and most cheerfully con- 
ceded. Deputations of twos or threes 
are sent out to visit the patients, and 
on these occasions there is such a 
tasting of caudle and beef-tea, such a 
stirring about of little messes in tiny 
saucepans on the hob, such a dressing 
and undressing of infants, such a 
tying, and folding, and pinning ; such 
a nursing and warming of little legs 
and feet before the fire, such a de- 
lightful confusion of talking and 
cooking, bustle, importance, and offici- 
ousness, as never can be enjoyed in its 
full extent but on similar occasions. 

In rivalry of these two institutions, 
and as a last expiring effort to acquire 
parochial popularity, the child's exa- 
mination people determined, the other 
day, on having a grand public exami- 
nation of the pupils ; and the large 
school-room of the national seminary 
was, by and with the consent of the 
parish authorities, devoted to the 



purpose. Invitation circulars were 
forwarded to all the principal parish- 
ioners, including, of course, the heads 
of the other two societies, for whose 
especial behoof and edification the 
display was intended ; and a large 
audience was confidently anticipated 
on the occasion. The floor was care- 
fully scrubbed the day before, under 
the immediate superintendence of the 
three Miss Browns ; forms were placed 
across the room for the accommoda- 
tion of the visitors, specimens in writ- 
ing were carefully selected, and as 
carefully patched and touched up, 
until they astonished the children who 
had written them, rather more than 
the company Avho read them ; sums in 
compound addition were rehearsed and 
re-rehearsed until all the children had 
the totals by heart ; and the prepara- 
tions altogether were on the most 
laborious and most comprehensive 
scale. The morning arrived : the 
children were yellow-soaped and flan- 
nelled, and towelled, till their faces 
shone again ; every pupil's hair was 
carefully combed into his or her eyes, 
as the case might be ; the girls were 
adorned with snow-white tippets, and 
caps bound round the head by a single 
purple ribbon : the necks of the elder 
boys were fixed into collars of startling 
dimensions. 

The doors were thrown open, and 
the Misses Brown and Co. were dis- 
covered in plain white muslin dresses, 
and caps of the same — the child's 
examination uniform. The room 
filled : the greetings of the company 
were loud and cordial. The distribu- 
tionists trembled, for their popularity 
was at stake. The eldest boy fell 
forward, and delivered a propitiatory 
address from behind his collar. It was 
from the pen of Mr. Henry Brown ; 
the applause was universal, and the 
Johnson Parkers were aghast. The 
examination proceeded with success, 
and terminated in triumph. The 
child's examination society gained a 
momentary victory, and the Johnson 
Parkers retreated in despair. 

A secret council of the distribu- 
tionists was held that night, with 



■24 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



Mrs. Johnson Parker in the chair, to 
consider of the best means of recover- 
ing the ground they had lost in the 
favour of the parish. What could be 
done ? Another meeting ! Alas ! 
who was to attend it ? The Missionary 
would not do twice ; and the slaves 
were emancipated. A bold step must 
be taken. The parish must be 
astonished in some way or other ; but 
no one was able to suggest what the 
step should be. At length, a very 
old lady was heard to mumble, in 
indistinct tones, " Exeter Hall." A 
sudden light broke in upon the meet- 
ing. It was unanimously resolved, 
that a deputation of old ladies should 
wait upon a celebrated orator implor- 
ing his assistance, and the favour of a 
speech ; and that the deputation should 
also wait on two or three other imbe- 



cile old women, not resident in the 
parish, and entreat their attendance 
The application was successful, the 
meeting was held ; the orator (an 
Irishman) came. He talked of green 
isles — other shores — vast Atlantic — 
bosom of the deep — Christian charity 
— blood and extermination — mercy in 
hearts — arms in hands — altars and 
homes — household gods. He wiped 
his eyes, he blew his nose, and he 
quoted Latin. The effect was tre- 
mendous — the Latin was a decided 
hit. Nobody knew exactly what it 
was about, but every body knew it 
must be affecting, because even the 
orator was overcome. The popularity 
of the distribution society among the 
ladies of our parish is unprecedented ; 
and the child's examination is going 
fast to decay. 



CHAPTER VII. 



OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR. 



We are very fond of speculating as 
we walk through a street, on the cha- 
racter and pursuits of the people who 
inhabit it ; and nothing so materially 
assists us in these speculations as the 
appearance of the house doors. The 
various expressions of the human 
countenance afford a beautiful and 
interesting study ; but there is some- 
thing in the physiognomy of street- 
door knockers, almost as character- 
istic, and nearly as infallible. When- 
ever we visit a man for the first time, 
we contemplate the features of his 
knocker with the greatest curiosity, 
-for we well know, that between the 
man and his knocker, there will inevit- 
ably be a greater or less degree of 
.resemblance and sympathy. 

For instance, there is one descrip- 
tion of knocker that used to be com- 
mon enough, but which is fast passing 
away — a large round one, with the 
jolly face of a convivial lion smiling 
blandly at you, as you twist the sides 
of your hair into a curl, or pull up 



your shirt-collar while you are wait- 
ing for the door to be opened ; we 
never saw that knocker on the door of 
a churlish man — so far as our ex- 
perience is concerned, it invariably 
bespoke hospitality and another bottle. 

No man ever saw this knocker on 
the door of a small attorney or bill- 
broker ; they always patronise the 
other lion ; a heavy ferocious-looking 
fellow, with a countenance expressive 
of savage stupidity — a sort of grand 
master among the knockers, and a great 
favourite with the selfish and brutal. 

Then there is a little pert 
Egyptian knocker, with a long thin 
face, a pinched up nose, and a very 
sharp chin ; he is most in vogue 
with your government-office people, 
in light drabs and starched cravats ; 
little spare priggish men, who are 
perfectly satisfied with their own opi- 
nions, and consider themselves of 
paramount importance. 

We were greatly troubled a few 
years ago, by the innovation of a new 



OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR. 



25 



kind of knocker, without any face at 
all, composed of a wreath, depending 
from a hand or small truncheon. A 
little trouble and attention, however, 
enabled us to overcome this difficulty, 
and to reconcile the new system to 
our favourite theory. You will in- 
variably find this knocker on the 
doors of cold and formal people, who 
always ask you why you don't come, 
and never say do. 

Everybody knows the brass knocker 
is common to suburban villas, and 
extensive boarding-schools ; and 
having noticed this genus we have 
recapitulated all the most prominent 
and strongly-defined species. 

Some phrenologists affirm, that the 
agitation of a man's brain by different 
passions, produces corresponding de- 
velopments in the form of his skull. 
Do not let us be understood as pushing 
our theory to the length of asserting, 
that any alteration in a man's disposi- 
tion would produce a visible effect 
on the feature of his knocker. Our 
position merely is, that in such a case, 
the magnetism which must exist be- 
tween a man and his knocker, would 
induce the man to remove, and seek 
some knocker more congenial to his 
altered feelings. If you ever find a 
man changing his habitation without 
any reasonable pretext, depend upon 
it, that, although he may not be aware 
of the fact himself, it is because he 
and his knocker are at variance. 
This is a new theory, but we venture 
to launch it, nevertheless, as being 
quite as ingenious and infallible as 
many thousand of the learned specu- 
lations which are daily broached for 
public good and private fortune- 
making. 

Entertaining these feelings on the 
subject of knockers, it will be readily 
imagined with what consternation we 
viewed the entire removal of the 
knocker from the door of the next 
house to the one we lived in, some 
time ago, and the substitution of a 
bell. This was a calamity we had 
never anticipated. The bare idea of 
any body being able to exist without a 
knocker, appeared so wild and 



visionary, that it had never for one 
instant entered our imagination. 

We sauntered moodily from the 
spot, and bent our steps towards Eaton 
Square, then just building. What 
was our astonishment and indignation 
to find that bells were fast becoming 
the rule, and knockers the exception ! 
Our theory trembled beneath the 
shock. We hastened home ; and 
fancying we foresaw in the swift pro- 
gress of events, its entire abolition, 
resolved from that day forward to 
vent our speculations on our next- 
door neighbours in person. The house 
adjoining ours on the left hand was 
uninhabited, and we had, therefore, 
plenty of leisure to observe our 
next-door neighbours on the other side. 

The house without the knocker was 
in the occupation of a city clerk, and 
there was a neatly-written bill in the 
parlour window intimating that lodg- 
ings for a single gentleman were to be 
let within. 

It was a neat, dull little house, on the 
shady side of the way, with new, nar- 
row floorcloth in the passage, and new, 
narrow stair-carpets up to the first 
floor. The paper was new, and the 
paint was new, and the furniture was 
new ; and all three, paper, paint, and 
furniture, bespoke the limited means 
of the tenant. There was a little red 
and black carpet in the drawing-room, 
with a border of flooring all the 
way round ; a few stained chairs and 
a pembroke table. A pink shell was 
displayed on each of the little side- 
boards, which, with the addition of a 
tea-tray and caddy, a few more shells 
on the mantelpiece, and three pea- 
cock's feathers tastefully arranged 
above them, completed the decorative 
furniture of the apartment. 

This was the room destined for the 
reception of the single gentleman 
during the day, and a little back room 
on the same floor was assigned as his 
sleeping apartment by night. 

The bill had not been long in the 
window, when a stout good-humoured 
looking gentleman, of about five-and- 
thirty, appeared as a candidate for 
the tenancy. Terms were soon ax*- 



26 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



ranged, for the bill was taken down 
immediately after his first visit. In a 
day or two the single gentleman came 
in, and shortly afterwards his real 
character came out. 

First of all, he displayed a most 
extraordinary partiality for sitting up 
till three or four o'clock in the morn- 
ing, drinking whiskey-and-water, and 
smoking cigars ; then he invited 
friends home, who used to come at 
ten o'clock, and begin to get happy 
about the small hours, when they 
evinced their perfect contentment by 
singing songs with half-a-dozen verses 
of two lines each, and a chorus of ten, 
which chorus used to be shouted forth 
by the whole strength of the company, 
in the most enthusiastic and vociferous 
manner, to the great annoyance of the 
neighbours, and the special discomfort 
of another single gentleman overhead. 

Now, this w r as bad enough, occur- 
ring as it did three times a week on 
the average, but this was not all ; for 
when the company did go away, in- 
stead of walking quietly down the 
street, as any body else's company 
would have done, they amused them- 
selves by making alarming and fright- 
ful noises, and counterfeiting the 
shrieks of females in distress ; and 
one night, a red-faced gentleman in a 
white hat knocked in the most 
urgent manner at the door of the 
powdered-headed old gentleman at 
No. 3, and when the powdered-headed 
old gentleman, who thought one of his 
married daughters must have been 
taken ill prematurely, had groped down 
stairs, and after a great deal of unbolt- 
ing and key-turning, opened the 
street door, the red-faced man in the 
■white hat said he hoped he 'd excuse 
his giving him so much trouble, but 
he 5 d feel obliged if he 'd favour him 
with a glass of cold spring water, and 
the loan of a shilling for a cab to take 
him home, on which the old gentle- 
man slammed the door and went up 
stairs, and threw the contents of his 
water jug out of window — very 
straight, only it went over the wrong 
man ; and the whole street was in- 
volved in confusion. 



A joke 's a joke ; and even practical 
jests are very capital in their way, if 
you can only get the other party to 
see the fun of them ; but the popula- 
tion of our street were so dull of 
apprehension, as to be quite lost to a 
sense of the drollery of this proceed- 
ing : and the consequence was, that 
our next-door neighbour was obliged 
to tell the single gentleman, that 
unless he gave up entertaining his 
friends at home, he really must be 
compelled to part with him. The 
single gentleman received the remon- 
strance with great good-humour, and 
promised from that time forward, to 
spend his evenings at a coffee-house — 
a determination which afforded gene- 
ral and unmixed satisfaction. 

The next night passed off very well, 
every body being delighted with the 
change ; but on the next, the noises 
were renewed with greater spirit than 
ever. The single gentleman's friends 
being unable to see him in his own 
house every alternate night, had come 
to the determination of seeing him 
home every night ; and what with the. 
discordant greetings of the friends at 
! parting, and the noise created by the 
single gentleman in his passage up 
stairs, and his subsequent struggles to 
get his boots off, the evil was not to be 
borne. So, our next-door neighbour 
gave the single gentleman, who was a 
very good lodger in other respects, 
notice to quit ; and the single gentle- 
man went away, and entertained his 
friends in other lodgings. 

The next applicant for the vacant 
first floor, was of a very different cha- 
racter from the troublesome single 
gentleman who had just quitted it. 
He was a tall, thin, young gentleman, 
with a profusion of brown hair, reddish 
whiskers, and very slightly developed 
mustaches. He wore a braided sur- 
tout, with frogs behind, light gray 
trousers, and wash-leather gloves, and 
had altogether rather a military ap- 
pearance. So unlike the roystering 
single gentleman. Such insinuating 
manners, and such a delightful ad- 
dress ! So seriously disposed, too ! 
When he first came to look at the 



OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR. 



27 



loggings, he inquired most particularly 
whether he was sure to be able to get 
a seat in the parish church ; and when 
he had agreed to take them, he re- 
quested to have a list of the different 
local charities, as he intended to sub- 
scribe his mite to the most deserving 
among them. 

Our next-door neighbour was now 
perfectly happy. He had got a lodger 
at last, of just his own way of think- 
ing — a serious, well-disposed man, who 
abhorred gaiety, and loved retirement. 
He took down the bill with a light 
heart, and pictured in imagination a 
long series of quiet Sundays, on which 
he and his lodger would exchange 
mutual civilities and Sunday papers. 

The serious man arrived, and his 
luggage was to arrive from the country 
next morning. He borrowed a clean 
shirt, and a prayer-book, from our next- 
door neighbour, and retired to rest at 
an early hour, requesting that he might 
be called punctually at ten o'clock next 
morning — not before, as he was much 
fatigued. 

He loas called, and did not answer : 
he was called again, but there was no 
reply. Our next-door neighbour be- 
came alarmed, and burst the door 
open. The serious man had left the 
nouse mysteriously; carrying with him 
the shirt, the prayer-book, a tea-spoon, 
and the bedclothes. 

Whether this occurrence, coupled 
with the irregularities of his former 
lodger, gave our next-door neighbour 
an aversion to single gentlemen, we 
know not ; we only know that the 
next bill which made its appearance in 
the parlour window intimated gene- 
rally, that there were furnished apart- 
ments to let on the first floor. The 
bill was soon removed. The new 
lodgers at first attracted our curiosity, 
and afterwards excited our interest. 

They were a young lad of eighteen 
or nineteen, and his mother, a lady of 
about fifty, or it might be less. The 
mother wore a widow's weeds, and the 
boy was also clothed in deep mourn- 
ing. They were poor — very poor ; 
for their only means of support arose 
from the pittance the boy earned, by 



copying writings, and translating for 
booksellers, 

They had removed from some country 
place and settled in London ; partly 
because it afforded better chances of 
employment for the boy, and partly, 
perhaps, with the natural desire to 
leave a place where they had been in 
better circumstances, and where their- 
poverty was known. They were proud 
under their reverses, and above re- 
vealing their wants and privations to 
strangers. How bitter those priva- 
tions were, and how hard the boy, 
worked to remove them, no one ever 
knew but themselves. Night after 
night, two, three, four hours after mid- 
night, could we hear the occasional 
raking up of the scanty fire, or the 
hollow and half-stifled cough, which 
indicated his being still at work ; and 
day after day, could we see more plainly 
that nature had set that unearthly 
light in his plaintive face, which is the 
beacon of her worst disease. 

Actuated, we hope, by a higher feel- 
ing than mere curiosity, we contrived 
to establish, first an acquaintance, and 
then a close intimacy, with the poor 
strangers. Our worst fears were re- 
alised ; the boy was sinking fast. 
Through a part of the winter, and the 
whole of the following spring and 
summer, his labours were unceasingly 
prolonged : and the mother attempted 
to procure needlework embroidery — 
anything for bread. 

A few shillings now and then, were 
all she could earn. The boy worked 
steadily on ; dying by minutes, but 
never once giving utterance to com- 
plaint or murmur. 

One beautiful autumn evening we 
went to pay our customary visit to the 
invalid. His little remaining strength 
had been decreasing rapidly for two or 
three days preceding, and he was lying 
on the sofa at the open window, gazing 
at the setting sun. His mother had 
been reading the Bible to him, for she 
closed the book as we entered, and 
advanced to meet us 

" I was telling William," she said, 
"that we must manage to take him 
into the country somewhere, SO that 



28 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



he may get quite well. He is not ill, 
you know, but he is not very strong, 
and has exerted himself too much 
lately." Poor thing ! The tears that 
streamed through her fingers, as she 
turned aside, as if to adjust her close 
widow's cap, too plainly showed how 
fruitless was the attempt to deceive 
herself. 

We sat down by the head of the 
sofa, but said nothing, for we saw the 
breath of life was passing gently but 
rapidly from the young form before 
us. At every respiration, his heart 
beat more slowly. 

The boy placed one hand in ours, 
grasped his mother's arm with the 
other, drew her hastily towards him, 
and fervently kissed her cheek. There 
was a pause. He sunk back upon his 
pillow, and looked long and earnestly 
in his mother's face. 

et William, William ! " murmured 
the mother after a long interval, " don't 
look at me so — speak to me, dear ! " 



The boy smiled languidly, but an 
instant afterwards his features resolved 
into the same cold, solemn gaze. 

" William, dear William ! rouse 
yourself, dear ; don't look at me so, 
love — pray don't ! Oh, my God ! what 
shall I do ! " cried the widow, clasping 
her hands in agony — " my dear boy { 
he is dying !" 

The boy raised himself by a violent 
effort, and folded his hands together — 
" Mother ! dear, dear mother, bury 
me in the open fields — anywhere but 
in these dreadful streets. I should 
like to be where you can see my grave, 
but not in these close crowded streets ; 
they have killed me ; kiss me again, 
mother ; put your arm round my 
neck — " 

He fell back, and a strange expres- 
sion stole upon his features ; not of 
pain or suffering, but an indescribable 
fixing of every line and muscle. 

The boy was dead. 



THE STREETS—MORNING. 



29 



SCENES. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE STREETS — MORNING. 



The appearance presented by the 
streets of London an hour before sun- 
rise, on a summer's morning, is most 
striking even to the few whose unfor- 
tunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely- 
less unfortunate pursuits of business, 
cause them to be well acquainted with 
the scene. There is an air of cold, 
solitary desolation about the noiseless 
streets which we are accustomed to 
see thronged at other times by a busy, 
eager crowd,and over the quiet, closely- 
shut buildings, which throughout the 
day are swarming with life and bustle, 
that is very impressive. 

The last drunken man, who shall 
find his way home before sun-light, 
has just staggered heavily along, roar- 
ing out the burden of the drinking 
song of the previous night : the last 
houseless vagrant whom penury and 
police have left in the streets, has 
coiled up his chilly limbs in some 
paved corner, to dream of food and 
warmth. The drunken, the dissipated, 
and the wretched have disappeared ; 
the more sober and orderly part of the 
population have not yet awakened to 
the labours of the day, and the still- 
ness of death is over the streets ; its 
very hue seems to be imparted to 
them, cold and lifeless as they look in 
the gray, sombre light of daybreak. 
The coach-stands in the larger tho- 
roughfares are deserted : the night- 
houses are closed; and the chosen 
promenades of profligate misery are 
empty. 

An occasional policeman may alone 
be seen at the street-corners, listlessly 
gazing on the deserted prospect before 



him ; and now and then a rakish-look- 
ing cat runs stealthily across the road 
and descends his own area with as 
much caution and slyness — bounding 
first on the water-butt, then on the 
dust-hole, and then alighting on the 
flag-stones — as if he were conscious 
that his character depended on his gal- 
lantry of the preceding night escaping 
public observation. A partially opened 
bedroom-window here and there, be- 
speaks the heat of the weather, and 
the uneasy slumbers of its occupant ; 
and the dim scanty flicker of the rush- 
light, through the window-blind, de- 
notes the chamber of watching or 
sickness. With these few exceptions, 
the streets present no signs of life, nor 
the houses of habitation. 

An hour wears away ; the spires of 
the churches and roofs of the principal 
buildings are faintly tinged with the 
light of the rising sun ; and the streets, 
by almost imperceptible degrees, begin 
to resume their bustle and animation. 
Market-carts roll slowly along : the 
sleepy waggoner impatiently urging on 
his tired horses, or vainly endeavour- 
ing to awaken the boy, who, luxuriously 
stretched on the top of the fruit-bas- 
kets, forgets, in happy oblivion, his 
long-cherished curiosity to behold the 
wonders of London. 

Rough, sleepy-looking animals of 
strange appearance, something between 
ostlers and hackney-coachmen, begin 
to take down the shutters of early 
public-houses ; and little deal tables, 
with the ordinary preparations for a 
street breakfast, make their appearance 
at the customary stations. Numbers 



:■: 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



of men and women (principally the 
latter), carrying upon their heads heavy 
baskets of fruit, toil down the park side 
of Piccadilly, on their way to Covent 
Garden, and, following each other in 
rapid succession, form a long strag- 
gling line from thence to the turn of 
the road at Knightsbridge. 

Here and there, a bricklayer's la- 
bourer, with the day's dinner tied up 
in a handkerchief, walks briskly to his 
work, and occasionally a little knot of 
three or four schoolboys on a stolen 
bathing expedition rattle merrily over 
the pavement, their boisterous mirth 
contrasting forcibly with the demean- 
our of the little sweep, who, having 
knocked and rung till his arm aches, 
and being interdicted by a merciful 
legislature from endangering his lungs 
by calling out, sits patiently down on 
the door-step until the housemaid may 
happen to awake. 

Covent Garden market, and the ave- 
nues leading to it, are thronged with 
carts of all sorts, sizes, and descrip- 
tions, from the heavy lumbering wag- 
gon, with its four stout horses, to the 
jingling costermonger's cart with its 
consumptive donkey. The pavement 
is already strewed with decayed cab- 
bage-leaves, broken haybands, and all 
the indescribable litter of a vegetable 
market ; men are shouting, carts back- 
ing, horses neighing, boys fighting, 
basket-women talking, piemen expa- 
tiating on the excellence of then' pastry, 
and donkeys braying. These and a hun- 
dred other sounds form a compound 
discordant enough to a Londoner's ears, 
and remarkably disagreeable to those 
of country gentlemen who are sleeping 
at the Hummums for the first time. 

Another hour passes away, and the 
day begins in good earnest. The ser- 
vant of all work, who, under the plea 
of sleeping very soundly, has utterly 
disregarded " Missis's" ringing for half 
an hour previously, is warned by Mas- 
ter (whom Missis has sent up in his 
drapery to the landing-place for that 
purpose), that it 's half-past six, where- 
upon she awakes all of a sudden, with 
well-feigned astonishment, and goes 
down stairs very sulkily, wishing, while 



she strikes a light, that the principle 
of spontaneous combustion would ex- 
tend itself to coals and kitchen range. 
When the fire is lighted, she opens the 
street-door to take in the milk, when, 
by the most singular coincidence in 
the world, she discovers that the ser- 
vant next door has just taken in her 
milk too, and that. Mr. Todd's young 
man over the way, is, by an equally 
extraordinary chance, taking down his 
master's shutters. The inevitable con- 
sequence is, that she just steps, milk- 
jug in hand, as far as next door, just 
to say " good morning," to Betsy Clark, 
and that Mr. Todd's young man just 
steps over the way to say " good morn- 
ing " to both of 'em ; and as the afore- 
said Mr. Todd's young man is almost 
as good-looking and fascinating as the 
baker himself, the conversation quickly 
becomes very interesting, and probably 
would become more so, if Betsy Clark's 
Missis, who always will be a followin' 
her about, didn't give an angry tap at 
her bedroom window, on which Mr. 
Todd's young man tries to whistle 
coolly, as he goes back to his shop 
much faster than he came from it ; 
and the two girls run back to their 
respective places, and shut then' street- 
doors with surprising softness, each of 
them poking their heads out of the 
front parlour -window, a minute after- 
wards, however, ostensibly with the 
view of looking at the mail which just 
then passes by, but really for the pur- 
pose of catching another glimpse of 
Mr. Todd's young man, who being fond 
of mails, but more of females, takes a 
short look at the mails, and a long look 
at the girls, much to the satisfaction of 
all parties concerned. 

The mail itself goes on to the coach- 
office in due course, and the passengers 
who are going out by the early coach, 
stare with astonishment at the passen- 
gers who are coming in by the early 
coach, who look blue and dismal, and 
are evidently under the influence of 
that odd feeling produced by travelling, 
which makes the events of yesterday- 
morning seem as if they had happened. 
at least six months ago, and induces 
people to wonder with considerable 



THE STREETS— MORNING. 



31 



gravity whether the friends and rela- 
tions they took leave of a fortnight 
hefore, have altered much since they 
left them. The coach-office is all alive, 
and the coaches which are just going 
out, are surrounded by the usual crowd 
of Jews and nondescripts, who seem to 
consider, Heaven knows why, that it is 
quite impossible any man can mount a 
coach without requiring at least six- 
pennyworth of oranges, a penknife, a 
pocket-book, a last-year's annual, a 
pencil-ease, a piece of sponge, and a 
small series of caricatures. 

Half an hour more, and the sun 
darts his bright rays cheerfully down 
the still half-empty streets, and shines 
with sufficient force to rouse the dismal 
laziness of the apprentice, who pauses 
every other minute from his task of 
sweeping out the shop and watering 
the pavement in front of it, to tell 
another apprentice similarly employed, 
how hot it will be to-day, or to stand 
with his right hand shading his eyes, 
and his left resting on the broom, 
gazing at the " Wonder," or the 
" Tally-ho," or the " Nimrod," or some 
other fast coach, till it is out of sight, 
when he re-enters the shop, envying 
the passengers on the outside of the 
fast coach, and thinking of the old red 
brick house " down in the country," 
where he went to school : the miseries 
of the milk and water, and thick bread 
and scrapings, fading into nothing be- 
fore the pleasant recollection of the 
green field the boys used to play in, 
and the green pond he was caned for 
presuming to fall into, and other 
schoolboy associations. 

Cabs, with trunks and band-boxes 
between the drivers' legs and outside 
the apron, rattle briskly up and down 
the streets on their way to the coach- 
offices or steam-packet wharfs ; and 
the cab-drivers and hackney-coachmen 
who are on the stand polish up the 
ornamental part of their dingy vehicles 
— the former wondering how people 
can prefer " them wild beast cariwans 
of homnibuses, to a riglar cab with a 
fast trotter," and the latter admiring 
how people can trust their necks into 
one of " them crazy cabs, when they 



can have a 'spectable 'ackney cotche 
with a pair of 'orses as von't run away 
with no vun ;" a consolation unques- 
tionably founded on fact, seeing that a 
hackney coach-horse never was known 
to run at all, " except," as the smart 
cabman in front of the rank observes, 
" except one, and he run back'ards." 

The shops are now completely 
opened, and apprentices and shop- 
men are busily engaged in cleaning 
and decking the windows for the day. 
The bakers' shops in town are filled 
with servants and children waiting for 
the drawing of the first batch of rolls 
— an operation which was performed 
a full hour ago in the suburbs ; for the 
early clerk population of Somers and 
Camden towns, Islington, and Penton- 
ville, are fast pouring into the city, or 
directing their steps towards Chancery- 
lane and the Inns of Court. Middle- 
aged men, whose salaries have by nc 
means increased in the same propor- 
tion as their f&milies, plod steadily 
along, apparently with no object in 
view but the counting-house ; know- 
ing by sight almost everybody they 
meet or overtake, for they have seen 
them every morning (Sundays ex- 
cepted) during the last twenty years, 
but speaking to no one. If they do 
happen to overtake a personal ac- 
quaintance, they just exchange a 
hurried salutation, and keep walking 
on either by his side, or in front of 
him, as his rate of walking may chance 
to be. As to stopping to shake hands, 
or to take the friend's arm, they seem 
to think that as it is not included in 
their salary, they have no right to do 
it. Small office lads in large hats, 
who are made men before they are 
boys, hurry along in pairs, with their 
first coat carefully brushed, and the 
white trousers of last Sunday plenti- 
fully besmeared with dust and ink. 
It evidently requires a considerable 
mental struggle to avoid investing 
part of the day's dinner-money in the 
purchase of the stale tarts so tempt- 
ingly exposed in dusty tins at the 
pastry-cook's doors ; but a conscious- 
ness of their own importance and the 
receipt of seven shillings a-week, with 



32 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



the prospect of an early rise to eight, 
comes to their aid. and they accord- 
ingly put their hats a little more on 
one side, and look under the bonnets 
of all the milliners' and staymakers' 
apprentices they meet — poor girls ! — 
the hardest worked, the worst paid, 
and too often, the worst used class of 
the community. 

Eleven o'clock, and a new set of 
people fill the streets. The goods in 
the shop-windows are invitingly ar- 
ranged ; the shopmen in their white 
neckerchiefs and spruce coats, look as 



if they couldn't clean a window if 
their lives depended on it : the carts 
have disappeared from Co vent Garden; 
the waggoners have returned, and the 
costermongers repaired to their ordi- 
nary " beats " in the suburbs ; clerks 
are at their offices, and gigs, cabs, 
omnibuses, and saddle-horses, are 
conveying their masters to the same 
destination. The streets are thronged 
with a vast concourse of people, gay 
and shabby, rich and poor, idle and 
industrious ; and we come to the heat, 
bustle, and activity of Noon. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE STREETS NIGHT. 



But the streets of London, to be 
beheld in the very height of their 
glory, should be seen on a dark, dull, 
murky winter's night, when there is 
just enough damp gently stealing 
down to make the pavement greasy, 
without cleansing it of any of its 
impurities ; and when the heavy lazy 
mist, which hangs over every object, 
makes the gas-lamps look brighter, 
and the brilliantly-lighted shops more 
splendid, from the contrast they pre- 
sent to the darkness around. All the 
people who are at home on such a 
night as this, seem disposed to make 
themselves as snug and comfortable as 
possible ; and the passengers in the 
streets have excellent reason to envy 
the fortunate individuals who are 
seated by their own firesides. 

In the larger and better kind of 
streets, dining-parlour curtains are 
closely drawn, kitchen fires blaze 
brightly up, and savoury steams of 
hot dinners salute the nostrils of the 
hungry wayfarer, as he plods wearily 
by the area railings. In the suburbs, 
the muffin-boy rings his way down 
the little street, much more slowly 
than he is wont to do ; for Mrs. 
Macklin, of No. 4, has no sooner 
opened her little street-door, and 



screamed out " Muffins ! " with all 
her might, than Mrs. Walker, at No. 5, 
puts her head out of the parlour- 
window, and screams "Muffins ! " too ; 
and Mrs. Walker has scarcely got the 
words out of her lips, than Mrs. Pep- 
low, over the way, lets loose Master 
Peplow, who darts down the street, 
with a velocity which nothing but 
buttered muffins in perspective could 
possibly inspire, and drags the boy 
back by main force, whereupon Mrs. 
Macklin and Mrs. Walker, just to 
save the boy trouble, and to say a few 
neighbourly words to Mrs. Peplow at 
the same time, run over the way and 
buy their muffins at Mrs. Peplow's 
door, when it appears from the volun- 
tary statement of Mrs. Walker, that 
her " kittle 's jist a biling, and the 
cups and sarsers ready laid," and that, 
as it was such a wretched night out o r 
doors, she 'd made up her mind to 
have a nice hot comfortable cup o* 
tea — a determination at which, by the 
most singular coincidence, the other 
two ladies had simultaneously arrived. 
After a little conversation about 
the wretchedness of the weather and 
the merits of tea, with a digression 
relative to the viciousness of boys as 
a rule, and the amiability of Master 



THE STREETS— NIGHT. 



33 



Peplow as an exception, Mrs. Walker 
sees her husband coming clown the 
street ; and as he must want his tea, 
poor man, after his dirty walk from 
the Docks, she instantly runs across, 
muffins in hand, and Mrs. Macklin 
does the same, and after a few words 
to Mrs. Walker, they all pop into their 
little houses, and slam their little 
street-doors, which are not opened 
again for the remainder of the even- 
ing, except to the nine o'clock " beer," 
who conies round with a lantern in front 
of his tray, and says, as he lends Mrs. 
Walker "Yesterday's 'Tiser, " that 
he's blessed if he can hardly hold the 
pot, much less feel the paper, for it 's 
one of the bitterest nights he ever felt, 
'cept the night Avhen the man was 
frozen to death in the Brick-field. 

After a little prophetic conversa- 
tion with the policeman at the street- 
corner, touching a probable change in 
the weather, and the setting-in of a 
hard frost, the nine o'clock beer 
returns to his master's house, and 
employs himself for the remainder of 
the evening, in assiduously stirring 
the tap-room fire, and deferentially 
taking part in the conversation of the 
worthies assembled round it. 

The streets in the vicinity of the 
Marsh-gate and Victoria Theatre pre- 
sent an appearance of dirt and dis- 
comfort on such a night, which the 
groups who lounge about them in no 
degree tend to diminish. Even the 
little block-tin temple sacred to baked 
potatoes, surmounted by a splendid 
design in variegated lamps, looks less 
gay than usual ; and as to the kidney- 
pie stand, its glory has quite departed. 
The candle in the transparent lamp, 
manufactured of oil-paper, embellished 
with "characters," has been blown 
out fifty times, so the kidney-pie 
merchant, tired with running back- 
wards and forwards to the next wine- 
vaults, to get a light, has given up the 
idea of illumination in despair, and the 
only signs of his " Avhereabout," are 
the bright sparks, of which a long irre- 
gular train is whirled down the street 
every time he opens his portable oven 
to hand a hot kidney-pie to a customer. 
No. 175. 



Flat fish, oyster, and fruit venders 
linger hopelessly in the kennel, in vain 
endeavouring to attract customers; 
and the ragged boys who usually dis- 
port themselves about the streets, 
stand crouched in little knots in some 
projecting doorway, or under the can- 
vas blind of the cheesemonger's, where 
great flaring gas-lights, unshaded by 
any glass, display huge piles of bright 
red, and pale yellow cheeses, mingled 
with little five-penny dabs of dingy 
bacon, various tubs of weekly Dorset, 
and cloudy rolls of "best fresh." 

Here they amuse themselves with 
theatrical converse, arising out of 
their last half-price visit to the Vic- 
toria gallery, admire the terrific com- 
bat, which is nightly encored, and 
expatiate on the inimitable manner in 
which Bill Thompson can " come the 
double monkey," or go through the 
mysterious involutions of a sailor's 
hornpipe. 

It is nearly eleven o'clock, and the 
cold thin rain which has been drizzling 
so long, is beginning to pour down in 
good earnest ; the baked-potato man 
has departed — the kidney-pie man hap 
just walked away with his warehouse 
on his arm — the cheesemonger has 
drawn in his blind, and the boys have 
dispersed. The constant clicking of 
pattens on the slippy and uneven 
pavement, and the rustling of umbrel- 
las, as the wind blows against the 
shop-windows, bear testimony to the 
inclemency of the night ; and the 
policeman, with his oilskin cape but- 
toned closely round him, seems as he 
holds his hat on his head, and turns 
round to avoid the gust of wind and 
rain which drives against him at the 
street-corner, to be very far from con- 
gratulating himself on the prospect 
before him. 

The little chandler's shop with the 
cracked bell behind the door, whose 
melancholy tinkling has been regulated 
by the demand for quarterns of sugar 
and half -ounces of coffee, is shutting 
up. The crowds which have been 
passing to and fro during the whole 
clay, are rapidly dwindling away ; and 
the noise of shouting and quarrelling 



u 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



which issues from the public-houses, 
is almost the only sound that breaks 
the melancholy stillness of the night. 

There was another, but it has ceased. 
That wretched woman with the infant 
in her arms, round whose meagre 
form the remnant of her own scanty 
shawl is carefully wrapped, has been 
attempting to sing some popular ballad, 
in the hope of wringing a few pence 
from the compassionate passer-by. A 
brutal laugh at her weak voice is all 
she has gained. The tears fall thick 
and fast down her own pale face ; the 
child is cold and hungry, and its low 
half-stifled wailing adds to the misery 
of its wretched mother, as she moans 
aloud, and sinks despairingly down, 
on a cold damp door-step. 

Singing ! How few of those who 
pass such a miserable creature as this, 
think of the anguish of heart, the 
sinking of soul and spirit, which the 
very effort of singing produces. Bitter 
mockery ! Disease, neglect, and 
starvation, faintly articulating the 
words of the joyous ditty, that has 
enlivened your hours of feasting and 
merriment, God knows how often ! 
It is no subject of jeering. The weak 
tremulous voice tells a fearful tale of 
want and famishing ; and the feeble 
singer of this roaring song may turn 
away, only to die of cold and hunger. 

One o'clock ! Parties returning 
from the different theatres foot it 
through the muddy streets ; cabs, 
hackney-coaches, carriages, and the- 
atre omnibuses, roll swiftly by ; water- 
men with dim dirty lanterns in their 
hands, and large brass plates upon 
their breasts, who have been shouting 
and rushing about for the last two 
hours, retire to their watering-houses, 
to solace themselves with the creature 
comforts of pipes and purl ; the half- 
price pit and box frequenters of the 
theatres throng to the different houses 
of refreshment ; and chops, kidneys, 
rabbits, oysters, stout, cigars, and 
" goes " innumerable, are served up 
amidst a noise and confusion of 
smoking, running, knife-clattering, 
and waiter-chattering, perfectly in- 
describable. 



The more musical portion of the play- 
going community betake themselves 
to some harmonic meeting. As a 
matter of curiosity let us follow them 
thither for a few moments. 

In a lofty room of spacious dimen- 
sions, are seated some eighty or a hun- 
dred guests knocking little pewter 
measures on the tables, and hammering 
away, with the handles of their knives, 
as if they were so many trunk-makers. 
They are applauding a glee, which has 
just been executed by the three " pro- 
fessional gentlemen " at the top of the 
centre table, one of whom is in the 
chair — the little pompous man with 
the bald head just emerging from the 
collar of his green coat. The others 
are seated on either side of him — the 
stout man with the small voice, and 
the thin-faced dark man in black. 
The little man in the chair is a most 
amusing personage, — such condescend- 
ing grandeur, and such a voice ! 

" Bass ! " as the young gentleman 
near us with the blue stock forcibly 
remarks to his companion, " bass ! I 
b'lieve you ; he can go down lower 
than any man : so low sometimes that 
you can't hear him." And so he does. 
To hear him growling away, gradually 
lower and lower down, till he can't 
get back again, is the most delightful 
thing in the world, and it is quite im- 
possible to witness unmoved the im- 
pressive solemnity with which he 
pours forth his soul in " My 'art's in 
the 'ighlands," or " The brave old 
Hoak." The stout man is also ad- 
dicted to sentimentality, and warbles 
" Fly, fly from the world, my Bessy, 
with me," or some such song, with 
lady-like sweetness, and in the most 
seductive tones imaginable. 

" Pray give your orders, gen'l'm'n 
— pray give your orders," — says the 
pale-faced man with the red head ; 
and demands for tt goes " of gin and 
" goes " of brandy, and pints of stout, 
and cigars of peculiar mildness, are 
vociferously made from all parts of 
the room. The " professional gen- 
tlemen" are hi the very height of their 
glory, and bestow condescending nods, 
or even a word or two of recognition 



THE STREETS— NIGHT. 



35 



on the better known frequenters of 
the room, in the most bland and 
patronising manner possible. 

That little round-faced man, with 
the small brown surtout, white stock- 
ings and shoes, is in the comic line ; 
the mixed air of self-denial, and mental 
consciousness of his own powers, with 
which he acknowledges the call of 
the chair, is particularly gratifying. 
* Gen'l'men," says the little pompous 
man, accompanying the word with a 
knock of the president's hammer on 
the table — " GenTmen, allow me to 
claim your attention — our friend, Mr. 
Smuggins will oblige." — " Bravo ! " 
shout the company ; and Smuggins, 
after a considerable quantity of cough- 
ing by way of symphony, and a most 
facetious sniff or two, which afford 
general delight, sings a comic song, 
with a fal-de-ral — tol-de-rol chorus at 
the end of every verse, much longer 
than the verse itself. It is received 
with unbounded applause, and after 



some aspiring genius has volunteered 
a recitation, and failed dismally therein, 
the little pompous man gives another 
knock, and says, " Gen'l'men, we will 
attempt a glee, if you please." This 
announcement calls forth tumultuous 
applause, and the more energetic 
spirits express the unqualified appro- 
bation it affords them, by knocking 
one or two stout glasses off their legs 
— a humorous device ; but one which 
frequently occasions some slight alter- 
cation when the form of paying the 
damage is proposed to be gone through 
by the waiter. 

Scenes like these are continued 
until three or four o'clock in the 
morning ; and even when they close, 
fresh ones open to the inquisitive 
novice. But as a description of all of 
them, however slight, would require a 
volume, the contents of which, how- 
ever instructive, would be by no 
means pleasing, we make our bow, 
and drop the curtain. 



3fi 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



CHAPTER III. 



SHOPS AND THEIK TENANTS. 



What inexhaustible food for specu- 
lation, do the streets of London afford ! 
"We never were able to agree with 
Sterne in pitying the man who could 
travel from Dan to Beersheba, and say 
that all was barren ; we have not the 
slightest commiseration for the man 
who can take up his hat and stick, and 
walk from Covent-garden to St. Paul's 
churchyard, and back into the bargain, 
without deriving some amusement — 
we had almost said instruction — from 
his perambulation. And yet there are 
such beings: we meet them every day. 
Large black stocks and light waist- 
coats, jet canes and discontented coun- 
tenances, are the characteristics of the 
race ; other people brush quickly by 
you, steadily plodding on to business, 
or cheerfully running after pleasure. 
These men linger listlessly past, look- 
ing as happy and animated as a police- 
man on duty. Nothing seems to make 
an impression on their minds: nothing 
short of being knocked down by a 
porter, or run over by a cab, will dis- 
turb their equanimity. You will meet 
them on a fine day in any of the leading 
thoroughfares : peep through the win- 
dow of a west-end cigar-shop in the 
evening, if you can manage to get a 
glimpse between the blue curtains 
which intercept the vulgar gaze, and 
you see them in their only enjoyment 
of existence. There they are lounging 
about, on round tubs and pipe-boxes, 
in all the dignity of whiskers, and 
gilt watch-guards ; whispering soft 
nothings to the young lady in amber, 
with the large ear-rings, who, as she 
sits behind the counter in a blaze of 
adoration and gas-light, is the admi- 
ration of all the female servants in the 
neighbourhood, and the envy of every 
milliner's apprentice within two miles 
round. 

One of our principal amusements is 
to watch the gradual progress — the 
rise or fall — of particular shops. We 



have formed an intimate acquamtairce- 
with several, in different parts of town, 
and are perfectly acquainted with their 
whole history. We could name off- 
hand, twenty at least, which we are 
quite sure have paid no taxes for 
the last six years. They are never 
inhabited for more than two months 
consecutively, and, we verily believe, 
have witnessed every retail trade in 
the directory. 

There is one, whose history is a 
sample of the rest, in whose fate we 
I have taken especial interest, having 
I had the pleasure of knowing it ever 
since it has been a shop. It is on the 
Surrey side of the water — a little dis- 
tance beyond the Marsh-gate. It was 
originally a substantial, good-looking 
private house enough; the landlord 
got into difficulties, the house got into 
Chancery, the tenant went away, and 
the house went to ruin. At this 
period our acquaintance with it com- 
menced : the paint was all worn off; 
the windows were broken, the area 
was green with neglect and the over- 
flowings of the water-butt ; the butt 
itself was without a lid, and the street- 
door was the very picture of misery. 
The chief pastime of the children in 
the vicinity had been to assemble in a 
body on the steps, and take it in turn 
to knock loud double knocks at the 
door, to the great satisfaction of the 
neighbours generally, and especially 
of the nervous old lady next door 
but one. Numerous complaints were 
made, and several small basins of 
water discharged over the offenders, 
but without effect. In this stats of 
things, the marine-store dealer at the 
corner of the street, in the most 
obliging manner took the knocker off, 
and sold it : and the unfortunate house 
looked more wretched than ever. 

We deserted our friend for a few 
weeks. What was our surprise, on 
our return, to find no trace of its 



SHOPS AND THEIR TENANTS. 



37 



existence ! In its place was a hand- 
some shop, fast approaching to a state 
of completion, and on the shutters 
were large bills, informing the public 
that it would shortly be opened with 
" an extensive stock of linen-drapery 
and haberdashery." It opened in due 
course ; there was the name of the 
proprietor " and Co." in gilt letters, 
almost too dazzling to look at. Such 
ribbons and shawls ! and two such 
elegant young men behind the counter, 
each in a clean collar and white neck- 
cloth, like the lover in a farce. As 
to the proprietor, he did nothing but 
walk up and down the shop, and hand 
seats to the ladies, and hold important 
conversations with the handsomest of 
the young men, who was shrewdly 
suspected by the neighbours to be the 
" Co." We saw all this with sorrow ; 
we felt a fatal presentiment that the 
shop was doomed — and so it was. Its 
decay was slow, but sure. Tickets 
gradually appeared in the windows; 
then rolls of flannel, with labels on 
them, were stuck outside the door ; 
then a bill was pasted on the street- 
door, intimating that the first floor 
was to let iwuurnished ; then one of 
the young men disappeared altogether, 
and the other took to a black necker- 
chief, and the proprietor took to drink- 
ing. The shop became dirty, broken 
panes of glass remained unmended, 
and the stock disappeared piecemeal. 
At last the company's man came to 
cut off the water, and then the linen- 
draper cut off himself, leaving the 
landlord his compliments and the key. 
The next occupant was a fancy sta- 
tioner. The shop was more modestly 
painted than before, still it was neat ; 
but somehow we always thought, as 
we passed, that it looked like a poor 
and struggling concern. We wished 
the man well, but we trembled for his 
success. He was a widower evidently, 
and had employment elsewhere, for he 
passed us every morning on his road 
to the city. The business was carried 
on by his eldest daughter. Poor girl ! 
she needed no assistance. We occa- 
sionally caught a glimpse of two or 
three children, in mourning like her- 



self, as they sat in the little parlour 
behind the shop ; and we never passed 
at night without seeing the eldest girl 
at work, either for them, or in making 
some elegant little trifle for sale. We 
often thought, as her pale face looked 
more sad and pensive in the dim 
candle-light, that if those thought- 
less females who interfere with the 
miserable market of poor creatures 
such as these, knew but one half of the 
misery they suffer, and the bitter pri- 
vations they endure, in their honour- 
able attempts to earn a scanty subsist- 
ence, they would, perhaps, resign even 
opportunities for the gratification of 
vanity, and an immodest love of self- 
display, rather than drive them to a 
last dreadful resource, which it would 
shock the delicate feelings of these 
charitable ladies to hear named. 

But we are forgetting the shop. 
Well, Ave continued to watch it, and 
every day showed too clearly the in- 
creasing poverty of its inmates. The 
children were clean, it is true, but 
their clothes were threadbare and 
shabby ; no tenant had been procured 
for the upper part of the house, from 
the letting of which, a portion of the 
means of paying the rent was to have 
been derived, and a slow, wasting con- 
sumption prevented the eldest girl from 
continuing her exertions. Quarter-day 
arrived. The landlord had suffered 
from the extravagance of his last 
tenant, and he had no compassion for 
the struggles of his successor ; he put 
in an execution. As we passed one 
morning, the broker's men were re- 
moving the little furniture there was 
in the house, and a newly-posted bill 
informed us it was again " To Let." 
What became of the last tenant we 
never could learn; we believe the girl 
is past all suffering, and beyond all 
sorrow. God help her i We hope 
she is. 

We were somewhat curious to ascer- 
tain what would be the next stage — for 
that the place had no chance of suc- 
ceeding now, was perfectly clear. The 
bill was soon taken down, and some 
alterations were being made in the 
interior of the shop. We were in a 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



fever of expectation ; we exhausted 
conjecture — we imagined all possible 
trades, none of which were perfectly 
reconcilable with our idea of the 
gradual decay of the tenement. It 
opened, and we wondered why we had 
not guessed at the real state of the 
case before. The shop — not a large 
one at the best of times — had been 
converted into two: one was a bonnet- 
shape maker's, the other was opened 
by a tobacconist, who also dealt in 
walking- sticks and Sunday newspapers; 
the two were separated by a thin par- 
tition, covered with tawdry striped 
paper. 

The tobacconist remained in pos- 
session longer than any tenant within 
our recollection. He was a red-faced, 
impudent, good-for-nothing dog, evi- 
dently accustomed to take things as 
they came, and to make the best of a 
bad' job. He sold as many cigars as 
he could, and smoked the rest. He 
occupied the shop as long as he could 
make peace with the landlord, and 
when he could no longer live in quiet, 
he very coolly locked the door, and 
molted himself. From this period, the 
two little dens have undergone innu- 
merable changes. The tobacconist was 
succeeded by a theatrical hair-dresser, 
who ornamented the window with a 



great variety of " characters," and ter- 
rific combats. The bonnet-shape maker 
gave place to a green-grocer, and the 
histrionic barber was succeeded, in his 
turn, by a tailor. So numerous have 
been the changes, that we have of late 
done little more than mark the pecu- 
liar but certain indications of a house 
being poorly inhabited. It has been 
progressing by almost imperceptible 
degrees. The occupiers of the shops 
have gradually given up room after 
room, until they have only reserved 
the little parlour for themselves. First 
there appeared a brass plate on the 
private door, with "Ladies' School" 
legibly engraved thereon ; shortly 
afterwards we observed a second brass 
plate, then a bell, and then another 
beU. 

When we paused in front of our old 
friend, and observed these signs of 
poverty, which are not to be mistaken, 
we thought as we turned away, that 
the house had attained its lowest pitch 
of degradation. We were wrong. 
When we last passed it, a "dairy" 
was established in the area, and a 
party of melancholy-looking fowls 
were amusing themselves by running 
in at the front door, and out at the 
back one. 



SCOTLAND-YARD. 



39 



CHAPTER IV. 



SCOTLAND-YARD. 



Scotland-yard is a small — a very 
small — tract of land, bounded on one 
side by the river Thames, on the other 
by the gardens of Northumberland 
House : abutting at one end on the 
bottom of Northumberland-street, at 
the other on the back of Whitehall- 
place. When this territory was first 
accidentally discovered by a country 
gentleman who lost his way in the 
Strand, some years ago, the original 
settlers were found to be a tailor, a 
publican, two eating-house keepers, 
and a fruit-pie maker ; and it was 
also found to contain a race of strong 
and bulky men, who repaired to the 
wharfs in Scotland-yard regularly 
every morning, about five or six 
o'clock, to fill heavy waggons with 
coal, with which they proceeded to 
distant places up the country, and 
supplied the inhabitants with fuel. 
When they had emptied their waggons, 
they again returned for a fresh supply; 
and this trade was continued through- 
out the year. 

As the settlers derived their sub- 
sistence from ministering to the wants 
of these primitive traders, the articles 
exposed for sale, and the places where 
they were sold, bore strong outward 
marks of being expressly adapted to 
their tastes and wishes. The tailor 
displayed in his window a Lilliputian 
pair of leather gaiters, and a diminu- 
tive round frock, while each doorpost 
was appropriately garnished with a 
model of a coal-sack. The two eating- 
house keepers exhibited joints of a 
magnitude, and puddings of a solidity, 
which coalheavers alone could appre- 
ciate ; and the fruit-pie maker dis- 
played on his well-scrubbed window- 
board large white compositions of 
flour and dripping, ornamented with 
pink stains, giving rich promise of the 
fruit within, which made their huge 
mouths water, as they lingered past. 

But the choicest spot in all Scot- 



land-yard was the old public house in 
the corner. Here, in a dark wain- 
scotted-room of ancient appearance, 
cheered by the glow of a mighty fire, 
and decorated with an enormous clock, 
whereof the face was white, and the 
figures black, sat the lusty coalheavers, 
quaffing large draughts of Barclay's 
best, and puffing forth volumes of 
smoke, which wreathed heavily above 
their heads, and involved the room in 
a thick dark cloud. From this apart- 
ment might their voices be heard on a 
winter's night, penetrating to the very 
bank of the river, as they shouted out 
some sturdy chorus, or roared forth 
the burden of a popular song ; dwell- 
ing upon the last few words with a 
strength and length of emphasis 
which made the very roof tremble 
above them. 

Here, too, would they tell old legends 
of what the Thames was in ancient 
times, when the Patent Shot Manufac- 
tory wasn't built, and Waterloo- 
bridge had never been thought of ; 
and then they would shake their heads 
with portentous looks, to the deep 
edification of the rising generation of 
heavers, who crowded round them, 
and wondered where all this would 
end ; whereat the tailor would take 
his pipe solemnly from his mouth, and 
say, how that he hoped it might end 
well, but he very much doubted 
whether it would or not, and couldn't 
rightly tell what to make of it — a mys- 
terious expression of opinion, delivered 
with a semi-prophetic air, which never 
failed to elicit the fullest concurrence 
of the assembled company ; and so 
they would go on drinking and won- 
dering till ten o'clock came, and with 
it the tailor's wife to fetch him home, 
when the little party broke up, to 
meet again in the same room, and 
say and do precisely the same things 
on the following evening at the same 
hour. 



40 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



About this time the barges that 
came up the river began to bring 
vague rumours to Scotland-yard of 
somebody in the city having been 
heard to say, that the Lord Mayor 
had threatened in so many words to 
pull down the old London-bridge, and 
build up a new one. At first these 
rumours were disregarded as idle 
tales, wholly destitute of foundation, 
for nobody in Scotland-yard doubted 
that if the Lord Mayor contemplated 
any such dark design, he would just be 
clapped up in the Tower for a week or 
two, and then killed off for high treason. 

By degrees, however, the reports 
grew stronger, and more frequent, 
and at last a barge, laden with nume- 
rous chaldrons of the best Wallsend, 
brought up the positive intelligence 
that several of the arches of the old 
bridge were stopped, and that prepa- 
rations were actually in progress for 
constructing the new one. What an 
excitement was visible in the old tap- 
room on that memorable night ! Each 
man looked into his neighbour's face, 
pale with alarm and astonishment, and 
read therein an echo of the sentiments 
which filled his own breast. The 
oldest heaver present proved to de- 
monstration, that the moment the 
piers were removed, all the water in 
the Thames would run clean off, and 
leave a dry gully in its place. What 
was to become of the coal-barges — of 
the trade of Scotland-yard — of the 
very existence of its population ? The 
tailor shook his head more sagely 
than usual, and grimly pointing to a 
knife on the table, bid them wait and 
see what happened. He said nothing 
— not he ; but if the Lord Mayor 
didn't fall a victim to popular indig- 
nation, why he would be rather 
astonished ; that was all. 

They did wait ; barge after barge 
arrived, and still no tidings of the 
assassination of the Lord Mayor. The 
first stone was laid : it was done by a 
Duke — the King's brother. Years 
passed away, and the bridge was 
opened by the King himself. In 
course of time, the piers were re- 
moved ; and when the people in Scot- 



land-yard got up next morning in the 
confident expectation of being able to 
step over to Pedlar's Acre without 
wetting the soles of their shoes, they 
found to their unspeakable astonish- 
ment that the water was just where it 
used to be. 

A result so different from that 
which they had anticipated from this 
first improvement, produced its full 
effect upon the inhabitants of Scot- 
land-yard. One of the eating-house 
keepers began to court public opinion, 
and to look for customers among a 
new class of people. He covered his 
little dining-tables with white cloths, 
and got a painter's apprentice to in- 
scribe something about hot joints from 
twelve to two, in one of the little panes 
of his shop-window. Improvement 
began to march with rapid strides to 
the very threshold of Scotland-yard. 
A new market sprung up at Hunger- 
ford, and the Police Commissioners 
established their office in Whitehall- 
place. The traffic in Scotland-yard 
increased; fresh Members were added 
to the House of Commons, the Metro- 
politan Representatives found it a 
near cut, and many other foot passen- 
gers followed their example. 

We marked the advance of civilisa- 
tion, and beheld it with a sigh. The 
eating-house keeper who manfully 
resisted the innovation of table-cloths, 
was losing ground every day, as his 
opponent gained it, and a deadly feud 
sprung up between them. The gen- 
teel one no longer took his evening's 
pint in Scotland-yard, but drank gin 
and water at a " parlour " in Parlia- 
ment-street. The fruit-pie maker still 
continued to visit the old room, but he 
took to smoking cigars, and began to 
call himself a pastrycook, and to read 
the papers. The old heavers still 
assembled round the ancient fireplace, 
but their talk was mournful : and the 
loud song and the joyous shout were 
heard no more. 

And what is Scotland-yard now ? 
How have its old customs changed ; 
and how has the ancient simplicity of 
its inhabitants faded away ! The old 
tottering public-house is converted 






SCOTLAND-YARD. 



41 



into a spacious and lofty " wine- 
vaults ;" gold leaf has been used in 
the construction of the letters which 
emblazon its exterior, and the poet's 
art has been called into requisition, to 
intimate that if you drink a certain 
description of ale, you must hold fast 
by the rail The tailor exhibits in his 
window the pattern of a foreign-look- 
ing brown surtout, with silk buttons, 
a fur collar and fur cuffs. He wears a 
stripe down the outside of each leg of 
his trousers : and we have detected 
his assistants (for he has assistants 
now) in the act of sitting on the shop- 
board in the same uniform. 

At the other end of the little row of 
houses a boot-maker has established 
himself in a brick box, with the ad- 
ditional innovation of a first floor ; 
and here he exposes for sale, boots — 
real Wellington boots — an article 
which a few years ago, none of the 
original inhabitants had ever seen or 
heard of. It was but the other day, 
that a dress-maker opened another 
little box in the middle of the row ; 
and, when we thought that the spirit 
of change could produce no alteration 
beyond that, a jeweller appeared, and 
not content with exposing gilt rings and 
copper bracelets out of number, put 
up an announcement, which still sticks 
in his window, that " ladies' ears may 
be pierced within." The dress-maker 
employs a young lady who wears 
pockets in her apron ; and the tailor 
informs the public that gentlemen may 
have their own materials made up. 



Amidst all this change, and rest- 
lessness, and innovation, there remains 
but one old man, who seems to mourn 
the downfall of this ancient place. He 
holds no converse with human kind, 
but, seated on a wooden bench at the 
angle of the wall which fronts the 
crossing from Whitehall-place, watches 
in silence the gambols of his sleek and 
well-fed dogs. He is the presiding 
genius of Scotland-yard. Years and 
years have rolled over his head ; but, 
in fine weather or in foul, hot or cold, 
wet or dry, hail, rain, or snow, he is 
still in his accustomed, spot. Misery 
and want are depicted in his counte- 
nance ; his form is bent by age, his 
head is gray with length of trial, but 
there he sits from day to day, brood- 
ing over the past ; and thither he will 
continue to drag his feeble limbs, until 
his eyes have closed upon Scotland- 
yard, and upon the world together. 

A few years hence, and the anti- 
quary of another generation looking 
into some mouldy record of the strife 
and passions that agitated the world in 
these times, may glance his eye over 
the pages we have just filled : and not 
all his knowledge of the history of the 
past, not all his black-letter lore, or 
his skill in book-collecting, not all the 
dry studies of a long life, or the dusty 
volumes that have cost him a fortune, 
may help him to the whereabouts, 
either of Scotland-yard, or of any one 
of the landmarks we have mentioned 
in describing it. 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



CHAPTER Y. 



SEVEN DIALS. 



We have always been of opinion 
that if Tom King and the Frenchman 
had not immortalised Seven Dials, 
Seven Dials would have immortalised 
itself. Seven Dials ! the region of 
song and poetry — first effusions, and 
last dying speeches : hallowed by the 
names of Catnach and of Pitts — names 
that will entwine themselves with 
costermongers, and barrel organs, 
when penny magazines shall have 
superseded penny yards of song, and 
capital punishment be unknown ! 

Look at the construction of the 
place. The gordian knot was all very 
well in its way : so was the maze of 
Hampton Court : so is the maze at 
the Beulah Spa : so were the ties of 
stiff white neckcloths, when the diffi- 
culty of getting one on, was only 
to be equalled by the apparent impos- 
sibility of ever getting it off again. 
But what involutions can compare 
with those of Seven Dials ? Where 
is there such another maze of streets, 
courts, lanes, and alleys % Where 
such a pure mixture of Englishmen 
and Irishmen, as in this complicated 
part of London ? We boldly aver 
that we doubt the veracity of the 
legend to which we have adverted. 
We can suppose a man rash enough 
to inquire at random — at a house 
with lodgers too— for a Mr. Thomp- 
son, with all but the certainty before 
his eyes, of finding at least two or 
three Thompsons in any house of 
moderate dimensions ; but a French- 
man — a Frenchman in Seven Dials ! 
Pooh ! He was an Irishman. Tom 
King's education had been neglected 
in his infancy, and as he couldn't 
understand half the man said, he took 
it for granted he was talking French. 

The stranger who finds himself in 
" The Dials" for the first time, and 
stands Belzoni-like, at the entrance of 
seven obscure passages, uncertain 
which to take, will see enough around 



him to keep his curiosity and attention 
awake for no inconsiderable time. 
From the irregular square into which 
he has plunged, the streets and courts 
dart in all directions, until they are 
lost in the unwholesome vapour which 
hangs over the house-tops, and 
renders the dirty perspective, uncer- 
tain and confined ; and lounging at 
every corner, as if they came there to 
take a few gasps of such fresh air as 
has found its way so far, but is too 
much exhausted already, to be 
enabled to force itself into the narrow- 
alleys around, are groups of people, 
whose appearance and dwellings would 
fill any mind but a regular Londoner's 
with astonishment. 

On one side, a little crowd has 
collected round a couple of ladies, 
who having imbibed the contents of 
various " three-outs" of gin and bitters 
in the course of the morning, have at 
length differed on some point of 
domestic arrangement, and are on the 
eve of settling the quarrel satisfac- 
torily, by an appeal to blows, greatly 
to the interest of other ladies who 
live in the same house, and tenements 
adjoining, and who are all partisans 
on one side or other. 

" Vy don't you pitch into her, 
Sarah ?" exclaims one half-dressed 
matron, by way of encouragement. 
a Vy don't you ? if my 'usband had 
treated her with a drain last night, 
unbeknown to me, I 'd tear her pre- 
cious eyes out — a wixen !" 

" What 's the matter, ma'am ? " 
inquires another old woman, who has 
just bustled up to the spot. 

" Matter !" replies the first speaker, 
talking at the obnoxious combatant, 
" matter ! Here 's poor dear Mrs. 
Sulliwin, as has five blessed children 
of her own, can't go out a charing for 
one arternoon, but what hussies must 
be a comin', and 'ticing avay her oun' 
'usband, as she 's been married to 



SEVEN DIALS. 



48 



twelve year come next Easter Mon- 
day, for I see the certificate ven I vas 
a drinkin' a cup o' tea vith her, only 
the werry last blessed Ven'sday as 
ever was sent. I 'appen'd to say 
promiscuously * Mrs. Sulliwin, says 

" What do you mean by hussies 1 " 
interrupts a champion of the other 
party, who has evinced a strong incli- 
nation throughout to get up a branch 
fight on her own account ("Hoo- 
roar," ejaculates a pot-boy in paren- 
thesis, "put the kye-bosk on her, 
Mary ! "), " What do you mean by 
hussies ? " reiterates the champion. 

" Niver mind," replies the opposi- 
tion expressively, " niver mind ; you 
go home, and, ven you're quite sober, 
mend your stockings." 

This somewhat personal allusion, 
not only to the lady's habits of intem- 
perance, but also to the state of her 
wardrobe, rouses her utmost ire, and 
she accordingly complies with the 
urgent request of the bystanders to 
" pitch in," with considerable alacrity. 
The scuffle became general, and 
terminates, hi minor play-bill phraseo- 
logy, with " arrival of the police- 
men, interior of the station-house, 
and impressive denouement." 

In addition to the numerous groups 
who are idling about the gin-shops and 
squabbling in the centre of the road, 
every post in the open space has its 
occupant, who leans against it for 
hours, with listless perseverance. It 
is odd enough that one class of men 
in London appear to have no enjoy- 
ment beyond leaning against posts. 
We never saw a regular bricklayer's 
labourer take any other recreation, 
fighting excepted. Pass through St. 
Giles's in the evening of a week-day, 
there they are in their fustian dresses, 
spotted with brick-dust and whitewash, 
leaning against posts. Walk through 
Seven Dials on Sunday morning : 
there they are again, drab or light 
corduroy trowsers, Blucher boots, 
blue coats, and great yellow waist- 
coats, leaning against posts. The idea 
of a man dressing himself in his best 
clothes, to lean against a post all day ! 



The peculiar character of these 
streets, and the close resemblance each 
one bears to its neighbour, by no 
means tends to decrease the bewilder- 
ment in which the unexperienced 
wayfarer through "the Dials" finds 
himself involved. He traverses streets 
of dirty, straggling houses, with now 
and then an unexpected court composed 
of buildings as ill-proportioned and 
deformed as the half-naked children 
that wallow in the kennels. Here and 
there, a little dark chandler's shop, 
with a cracked bell hung up behind 
the door to announce the entrance of 
a customer, or betray the presence of 
some young gentleman in whom a 
passion for shop tills has developed 
itself at an early age : others, as if 
for support, against some handsome 
lofty building, which usurps the place 
of a low dingy public-house ; long 
rows of broken and patched windows 
expose plants that may have flourished 
when " The Dials " were built, in 
vessels as dirty as " The Dials " them- 
selves ; and shops for the purchase of 
rags, bones, old iron, and kitchen-stuff, 
vie in cleanliness with the bird-fan- 
ciers and rabbit-dealers, which one 
might fancy so many arks, but for the 
irresistible conviction that no bird in 
its proper senses, who was permitted 
to leave one of them, would ever come 
back again. Brokers' shops, which 
would seem to have been established 
by humane individuals, as refuges for 
destitute bugs, interspersed with an- 
nouncements of day-schools, penny 
theatres, petition-writers, mangles, 
and music for balls or routs, complete 
the "still life" of the subject; and 
dirty men, filthy women, squalid 
children, fluttering shuttlecocks, noisy 
battledores, reeking pipes, bad fruit, 
more than doubtful oysters, attenuated 
cats, depressed dogs, and anatomical 
fowls, are its cheerful accompaniments. 
If the external appearance of the 
houses, or a glance at their inhabitants, 
present but few attractions, a closer 
acquaintance with either is little cal- 
culated to alter one's first impression. 
Every room has its separate tenant, 
and every tenant is, by the same mys- 



44 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



terious dispensation which causes a \ 
country curate to " increase and mul- j 
tiply " most marvellously, generally 
the head of a numerous family. 

The man in the shop, perhaps, is in 
the baked "jemmy" line, or the fire- 
wood and hearth-stone line, or any 
other line which requires a floating 
capital of eighteen pence or there- 
abouts : and he and his family live in 
the shop, and the small back parlour 
behind it. Then there is an Irish 
labourer and his family in the back 
kitchen, and a jobbing-man — carpet- 
beater and so forth — with his family 
in the front one. In the front one- 
pair, there's another man with another 
wife and family, and in the back one- 
pair, there's " a young 'oman as takes 
in tambour-work, and dresses quite 
genteel," who talks a good deal about 
"my friend," and can't "abear any- 
thing low." The second floor front, 
and the rest of the lodgers, are just a 
second edition of the people below, 
except a shabby-genteel man in the 
nack attic, who has his half-pint of 
coffee every morning from the coffee- 
shop next door but one, which boasts 
a little front den called a coffee-room, 
with a fire-place, over which is an 
inscription, politely requesting that, 
" to prevent mistakes," customers will 
" please to pay on delivery." The 
shabby-genteel man is an object of 
some mystery, but as he leads a life of 
seclusion, and never was known to 
buy anything beyond an occasional 



pen, except half-pints of coffee, penny 
loaves, and ha'porths of ink, his fellow- 
lodgers very naturally suppose him to 
be an author ; and rumours are cur- 
rent in the Dials, that he writes poems 
for Mr. Warren. 

Now any body who passed through 
the Dials on a hot summer's evening, 
and saw the different women of the 
house gossiping on the steps, would be 
apt to think that all was harmony 
among them, and that a more primitive 
set of people than the native Diallers 
could not be imagined. Alas ! the 
man in the shop illtreats his family ; 
the carpet-beater extends his pro- 
fessional pursuits to his wife ; the one- q 
pair front has an undying feud with 
the two-pair front, in consequence of 
the two-pair front persisting in dancing 
over his (the one-pair front's) head, 
when he and his family have retired 
for the night ; the two-pair back will 
interfere with the front kitchen's chil- 
dren ; the Irishman comes home 
di'unk every other night, and attacks 
every body ; and the one pair back 
screams at every thing. Animosities 
spring up between floor and floor ; 
the very cellar asserts his equality. 
Mrs. A. "smacks" Mrs. B.'s child, 
for "making faces." Mrs. B. forth- 
with throws cold water over Mrs. A.'s 
child for " calling names." The hus- 
bands are embroiled — the quarrel 
becomes general — an assault is the 
consequence, and a police-officer the 
result. 



MEDITATIONS IN MONMOUTH-STREET. 



45 



CHAPTER VI. 



MEDITATIONS IN MONMOUTH-STREET. 



We have always entertained a par- 
ticular attachment towards Monmouth- 
street, as the only true and real em- 
porium for second-hand wearing 
apparel. Monmouth-street is vene- 
rable from its antiquity, and respectable 
from its usefulness. Holywell-street 
we despise : the red-headed and red- 
whiskered Jews who forcibly haul you 
into their squalid houses, and thrust 
you into a suit of clothes, whether you 
will or not, we detest. 

The inhabitants of Monmouth-street 
are a distinct class ; a peaceable and 
retiring race, who immure themselves 
for the most part in deep cellars, or 
small back parlours, and who seldom 
come forth into the world, except in 
the dusk and coolness of evening, 
when they may b^ seen seated, in chairs 
on the pavement, smoking their pipes, 
or watching the gambols of their en- 
gaging children as they revel in the 
gutter, a happy troop of infantine sca- 
vengers. Their countenances bear a 
thoughtful and a dirty cast, certain in- 
dications of their love of traffic ; and 
their habitations are distinguished by 
that disregard of outward appearance, 
and neglect of personal comfort, so 
common among people who are con- 
stantly immersed in profound specu- 
lations, and deeply engaged in sedentary 
pursuits. 

We have hinted at the antiquity of 
our favourite spot. " A Monmouth- 
street laced coat " was a by-word a 
century ago ; and still we find Mon- 
mouth-street the same. Pilot great- 
coats with wooden buttons, have 
usurped the place of the ponderous 
laced coats with full skirts ; embroi- 
dered waistcoats with large flaps, have 
yielded to double-breasted checks with 
roll-collars ; and three-cornered hats 
of quaint appearance, have given place 
to the low crowns and broad brims of 
the coachman school ; but it is the 
times that have changed, not Mon- 



mouth-street. Through every altera- 
tion and every change, Monmouth- 
street has still remained the burial- 
place of the fashions ; and such, to 
judge from all present appearances, 
it will remain until there are no more 
fashions to bury. 

We love to walk among these ex- 
tensive groves of the illustrious dead, 
and to indulge in the speculations 
to which they give rise ; now fitting 
a deceased coat, then a dead pair 
of trousers, and anon the mortal 
remains of a gaudy waistcoat, upon 
some being of our own conjuring up, 
and endeavouring, from the shape and 
fashion of the garment itself, to bring 
its former owner before our mind's 
eye. We have gone on speculating in 
this way, until whole rows of coats 
have started from their pegs, and but- 
toned up, of their own accord, round 
the waists of imaginary wearers ; lines 
of trousers have jumped down to meet 
them ; waistcoats have almost burst 
with anxiety to put themselves on ; 
and half an acre of shoes have sud- 
denly found feet to fit them, and gone 
stumping down the street with a noise 
which has fairly awakened us from our 
pleasant reverie, and driven us slowly 
away, with a bewildered stare, an 
object of astonishment to the good 
people of Monmouth-street, and of no 
slight suspicion to the policemen at 
the opposite street corner. 

We were occupied in this manner 
the other day, endeavouring to fit a 
pair of lace-up half-boots on an ideal 
personage, for whom, to say the truth, 
they were full a couple of sizes too 
small, when our eyes happened to 
alight on a few suits of clothes ranged 
outside a shop-window, which it imme- 
diately struck us, must at different 
periods have all belonged to, and been 
worn by, the same individual, and had 
now, by one of those strange conjunc- 
tions of circumstances which will occur 



4S 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



sometimes, come to be exposed toge- 
ther for sale in the same shop. The 
idea seemed a fantastic one, and we 
looked at the clothes again, with a 
firm determination not to be easily led 
away. No, we were right ; the more 
we looked, the more we were convinced 
of" the accuracy of our previous im- 
pression. There was the man's whole 
life written as legibly on those clothes, 
as if we had his autobiography en- 
grossed on parchment before us. 

The first was a patched and much- 
soiled skeleton suit ; one of those 
straight blue cloth cases in which small 
boys used to be confined, before belts 
and tunics had come in, and old no- 
tions had gone out : an ingenious con- 
trivance for displaying the full sym- 
metry of a boy's figure, by fastening 
him into a very tight jacket, with an 
ornamental row of buttons over each 
shoulder, and then buttoning his trou- 
sers over it, so as to give his legs the 
appearance of being hooked on, just 
under the armpits. This was the boy's 
dress. It had belonged to a town boy, 
we could see ; there was a shortness 
about the legs and arms of the suit ; 
and a bagging at the knees, peculiar to 
the rising youth of London streets. 
A small day-school he had been at, 
evidently. If it had been a regular 
boys' school they wouldn't have let 
him play on the floor so much, and 
rub his knees so white. He had an 
indulgent mother too, and plenty of 
halfpence, as the numerous smears 
of some sticky substance about the 
pockets, and just below the chin, which 
even the salesman's skill could not 
succeed in disguising, sufficiently beto- 
kened. They were decent people, but 
not overburdened with riches, or he 
would not have so far outgrown the 
suit when he passed into those cordu- 
roys with the round jacket ; in which 
he went to a boys' school, however, 
learnt to write— and in ink of pretty 
tolerable blackness, too, if the place 
where he used to wipe his pen might 
be taken as evidence. 

A black suit and the jacket changed 
into a diminutive coat. His father 
had died, and the mother had got the 



boy a message-lad's place in some office. 
A long- worn suit that one ; rusty and 
threadbare before it was laid aside, 
but clean and free from soil to the last. 
Poor woman ! We could imagine her 
assumed cheerfulness over the scanty 
meal, and the refusal of her own small 
portion, that her hungry boy might 
have enough. Her constant anxiety 
for his welfare, her pride in his growth 
mingled sometimes with the thought, 
almost too acute to bear, that as he 
grew to be a man his old affection 
might cool, old kindnesses fade from his 
mhid, and old promises be forgotten — 
the sharp pain that even then a care- 
less word or a cold look would give 
her — all crowded on our thoughts as 
vividly as if the very scene were pass- 
ing before us. 

These things happen every hour, 
and we all know it ; and yet we felt 
as much sorrow when we saw, or fan- 
cied we saw — it makes no difference 
which — the change that began to take 
place now, as if we had just conceived 
the bare possibility of such a thing for 
the first time. The next suit, smart 
but slovenly ; meant to be gay, and 
yet not half so decent as the thread- 
bare apparel ; redolent of the idle 
lounge, and the blackguard compa- 
nions, told us, we thought, that the 
widow's comfort had rapidly faded 
away. We could imagine that coat — 
imagine ! we could see it ; we had 
seen it a hundred times — sauntering 
in company with three or four other 
coats of the same cut, about some 
place of profligate resort at night. 

We dressed, from the same shop- 
window in an instant, half a dozen 
boys of from fifteen to twenty ; and 
putting cigars into their mouths, and 
their hands into their pockets, watched 
them as they sauntered down the 
street, and lingered at the corner, with 
the obscene jest, and the oft-repeated 
oath. We never lost sight of them, 
till they had cocked their hats a little 
more on one side, and swaggered into 
the public-house ; and then we entered 
the desolate home, where the mother 
sat late in the night, alone ; we watched 
her, as she paced the room in feverish 



MEDITATIONS IN MONMOUTH-STREET. 



47 






anxiety, and every now and then opened 
the door, looked wistfully into the dark 
and empty street, and again returned, 
to be again and again disappointed. 
We beheld the look of patience with 
which she bore the brutish threat, nay, 
even the drunken blow ; and we heard 
the agony of tears that gushed from her 
very heart, as she sank upon her knees 
in her solitary and wretched apartment. 

A long period had elapsed, and a 
greater change had taken place, by the 
time of casting off the suit that hung 
above. It was that of a stout, broad- 
shouldered, sturdy-chested man ; and 
we knew at once, as any body would, 
who glanced at that broad-skirted green 
coat, with the large metal buttons, that 
its wearer seldom walked forth without 
a dog at his heels, and some idle 
ruffian, the very counterpart of him- 
self, at his side. The vices of the boy 
had grown with the man, and we fancied 
his home then — if such a place deserve 
the name. 

We saw the bare and miserable room, 
destitute of furniture, crowded with 
his wife and children, pale, hungry, 
and emaciated ; the man cursing their 
lamentations, staggering to the tap- 
room, from whence he had just re- 
turned, followed by his wife and a 
sickly infant, clamouring for bread ; 
and heard the street- wrangle and noisy 
recrimination that his striking her 
occasioned. And then imagination led 
us to some metropolitan workhouse, 
situated in the midst of crowded streets 
and alleys, filled with noxious vapours, 
and ringing with boisterous cries, 
where an old and feeble woman, im- 
ploring pardon for her son, lay dying 
in a close dark room, with no child to 
clasp her hand, and no pure air from 
heaven to fan her brow. A stranger 
closed the eyes that settled into a cold 
unmeaning glare, and strange ears 
received the words that murmured 
from the white and half-closed lips. 

A coarse round frock, Avith a worn 
cotton neckerchief, and other articles 
of clothing of the commonest descrip- 
tion, completed the history. A prison, 
and the sentence — banishment or the 
gallows. What would the man have 



given then, to be once again the con- 
tented humble drudge of his boyish 
years ; to have restored to life, but for 
a week, a clay, an hour, a minute, only 
for so long a time as would enable him 
to say one word of passionate regret 
to, and hear one sound of heartfelt for- 
giveness from, the cold and ghastly 
form that lay rotting in the pauper's 
grave ! The children wild in the 
streets, the mother a destitute widow ; 
both deeply tainted with the deep dis- 
grace of the husband and father's 
name, and impelled by sheer necessity, 
down the precipice that had led him to- 
a lingering death, possibly of many 
years' duration, thousands of miles 
away. We had no clue to the end 
of the tale ; but it was easy to guess 
its termination. 

We took a step or two further on, 
and by way of restoring the naturally 
cheerful tone of our thoughts, began 
fitting visionary feet and legs into a 
cellar-board full of boots and shoes, 
with a speed and accuracy that would 
have astonished the most expert artist 
in leather, living. There was one 
pair of boots in particular — a jolly, 
good-tempered, hearty-looking, pair of 
tops, that excited our warmest regard ; 
and we had got a fine, red-faced, jovial 
fellow of a market-gardener into them, 
before we had made their acquaintance 
half a minute. They were just the 
very thing for him. There were his 
huge fat legs bulging over the tops, 
and fitting them too tight to admit of 
his tucking in the loops he had pulled 
them on by ; and his knee- cords with 
an interval of stocking ; and his blue 
apron tucked up round his Avaist ; and 
his red neckerchief and blue coat, and 
a white hat stuck on one side of his 
head ; and there he stood with a broad 
grin on his great red face, whistling 
aAvay, as if any other idea but that of 
being happy and comfortable had never 
entered his brain. 

This Avas the very man after our 
OAvn heart ; Ave knew all about him ; 
Ave had seen him coming up to Covent- 
garden in his green chaise-cart, Avith 
the fat tubby little horse, half a thou- 
sand times ; and even while Ave cast 



48 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



an affectionate look upon his boots, at 
that instant, the form of a coquettish 
servant-maid suddenly sprung into a 
pair of Denmark satin shoes that stood 
beside them, and we at once recog- 
nised the very girl who accepted his 
offer of a ride, just on this side the 
Hammersmith suspension-bridge, the 
very last Tuesday morning we rode 
into town from Richmond. 

A very smart female, in a showy 
bonnet, stepped into a pair of gray 
cloth boots, with black fringe and 
binding, that were studiously pointing 
out their toes on the other side of the 
top-boots, and seemed very anxious to 
engage his attention, but we didn't 
observe that our friend the market- 
gardener appeared at all captivated 
with these blandishments ; for beyond 
giving a knowing wink when they 
first began, as if to imply that he quite 
understood their end and object, he 
took no further notice of them. His 
indifference, however, was amply re- 
compensed by the excessive gallantry 
of a very old gentleman with a silver- 
headed stick, who tottered into a pair 
of large list shoes, that were standing 
in one corner of the board,and indulged 
in a variety of gestures expressive of 
his admiration of the lady in the cloth 
boots, to the immeasurable amusement 
of a young fellow we put into a pair 
of long-quartered pumps, who we 
thought would have split the coat that 
slid down to meet him, with laughing. 

We had been looking on at this 
little pantomime with great satisfac- 
faction for some time, when, to our 
unspeakable astonishment, we per- 
ceived that the whole of the charac- 
ters, including a numerous corps de 
oallet of boots and shoes in the back- 
ground, into which we had been 
nastily thrusting as many feet as we 
could press into the service, were 
arranging themselves in order for 
dancing ; and some music striking up 
at the moment, to it they went with- j 
out delay. It was perfectly delightful 
to witness the agility of the market- 
gardener. Out went the boots, first 
on one side, then on the other, then 
cutting, then shuffling, then setting to 



the Denmark satins, then advancing, 
then retreating, then going round, and 
then repeating the whole of the evolu- 
tions again, without appearing to suffer 
in the least from the violence of the 
exercise. 

Nor were the Denmark satins a bit 
behindhand, for ; they jumped and 
bounded about, in all directions ; and 
though they were neither so regular, 
nor so true to the time as the cloth 
boots, still, as they seemed to do it 
from the heart, and to enjoy it more, 
we candidly confess that we preferred 
their style of dancing to the other. 
But the old gentleman in the list 
shoes was the most amusing object in 
the whole party ; for, besides his gro- 
tesque attempts to appear youthful, 
and amorous, which were sufficiently 
entertaining in themselves, the young 
fellow in the pumps managed so art- 
fully that every time the old gentleman 
advanced to salute the lady in the 
cloth boots, he trod with his whole 
weight on the old fellow's toes, which 
made him roar with anguish, and 
rendered all the others like to die 
of laughing. 

We were in the full enjoyment of 
these festivities when we heard a 
shrill, and by no means musical voice, 
exclaim, " Hope you '11 know me agin, 
imperence ! " and on looking intently 
forward to see from whence the sound 
came, we found that it proceeded, not 
from the young lady in the cloth boots, 
as we had at first been inclined to sup- 
pose, but from a bulky lady of elderly 
appearance who was seated in a chair at 
the head of the cellar-steps, apparently 
for the purpose of superintending the 
sale of the articles arranged there. 

A barrel organ, which had been in 
full force close behind us, ceased 
playing ; the people we had been 
fitting into the shoes and boots took 
to flight at the interruption ; and as 
we were conscious that in the depth 
of our meditations we might have 
been rudely staring at the old lady for 
half an hour without knowing it, we 
took to flight too, and were soon 
immersed in the deepest obscurity of 
the adjacent "Dials." 



HACKNEY-COACH STANDS. 



49 



CHAPTER VII. 



HACKNEY-COACH STANDS. 



We maintain that hackney-coaches, 
properly so called, . belong solely to 
the metropolis. We' may be told, that 
there are hackney-coach stands in 
Edinburgh ; and not to go quite so 
far for a contradiction to our position, 
we may be reminded that Liverpool, 
Manchester, " and other large towns " 
(as the Parliamentary phrase goes), 
have tlteir hackney-coach stands. We 
readily concede to these places, the 
possession of certain vehicles, which 
may look almost as dirty, and even go 
almost as slowly, as London hackney- 
coaches : but that they have the 
slightest claim to compete Avith the 
metropolis, either in point of stands, 
drivers, or cattle, we indignantly deny. 

Take a regular, ponderous, rickety, 
London hackney-coach of the old 
school, and let any man have the bold- 
ness to assert, if he can, that he ever 
beheld any object on the face of the 
earth which at all resembles it, unless, 
indeed, it wsre another hackney-coach 
of the same date. We have recently 
observed on certain stands, and we 
say it with deep regret, rather dapper 
green chariots, and coaches of polished 
yellow, with four wheels of the same 
colour as the coach, whereas it is per- 
fectly notorious to every one who has 
studied the subject, that every wheel 
ought to be of a different colour, and 
a different size. These are innova- 
tions, and, like other mis-called im- 
provements, awful signs of the rest- 
lessness of the public mind, and the 
little respect paid to our time-honoured 
institutions. Why should hackney- 
coaches be clean ? Our ancestors 
found them dirty, and left them so. 
Why should we, with a feverish wish 
to " keep moving," desire to roll along 
at the rate of six miles an hour, while 
they were content to rumble over the 
stones at four ? These are solemn 
considerations. Hackney-coaches are 
part and parcel of the law of the land ; 

No. 176. i 



they were settled by the Legislature ; 
plated and numbered by the wisdom 
of Parliament. 

Then why have they been swamped 
by cabs and omnibuses 1 Or why 
should people be allowed to ride 
quickly for eightpence a mile, after 
Parliament had come to the solemn 
decision that they should pay a shilling 
a mile for riding slowly \ We pause 
for a reply ; — and, having no chance 
of getting one, begin a fresh paragraph. 

Our acquaintance with hackney- 
coach stands is of long standing. We 
are a walking book of fares, feeling 
ourselves half-bound, as it were, to be 
always in the right on contested points. 
We know all the regular watermen 
within three miles of Covent-garden 
by sight, and should be almost tempted 
to believe that all the hackney-coach 
horses in that district knew us by 
sight too, if one-half of them were not 
blind. We take great interest in 
hackney-coaches, but we seldom drive, 
having a knack of turning ourselves 
over, when we attempt to do so. We 
are as great friends to horses, hack- 
ney-coach and otherwise, as the re- 
nowned Mr. Martin, of costermonger 
notoriety, and yet we never ride. We 
keep no horse, but a clothes-horse ; 
enjoy no saddle so much as a saddle 
of mutton ; and, following our own 
inclinations, have never followed the 
hounds. Leaving . these fleeter means 
of getting over the ground, or of 
depositing oneself upon it, to those 
who like them, by hackney-coach 
stands we take our stand. 

There is a hackney-coach stand 
under the very window at which we 
are writing ; there is only one coach 
on it now, but it is a fair specimen of 
the class of vehicles to which we have 
alluded — a great, lumbering, square 
concern of a dingy yellow colour (like 
a bilious brunette), with very small 
glasses, but very large frames ; the 



50 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



panels are ornamented with a faded 
coat of arms, in shape something like 
a dissected bat, the axletree is red, 
and the majority of the wheels are 
green. The box is partially covered 
by an old great-coat, with a multipli- 
city of capes, and some extraordinary- 
looking clothes ; and the straw, with 
which the canvas cushion is stuffed 
is sticking up in several places, as if 
in rivalry of the hay, which is peeping 
through the chinks in the boot. The 
horses, with drooping heads, and each 
with a mane and tail as scanty and 
straggling as those of a worn-out rock- 
ing-horse, are standing patiently on 
some damp straw, occasionally wincing, 
and rattling the harness ; and, now 
and then, one of them lifts his mouth 
to the ear of his companion, as if he 
were saying, in a whisper, that he 
should like to assassinate the coach- 
man. The coachman himself is in the 
watering-house ; and the waterman, 
with his hands forced into his pockets 
as far as they can possibly go, is 
dancing the " double shuffle," in front 
of the pump, to keep his feet warm. 

The servant-girl, with the pink rib- 
bons, at No. 5, opposite, suddenly 
opens the street-door, and four small 
children forthwith rush out, and scream 
" Coach ! " with all their might and 
main. The waterman darts from the 
pump, seizes the horses by their re- 
spective bridles, and drags them, and 
the coach too, round to the house, 
shouting all the time for the coachman 
at the very top, or rather very bottom 
of his voice, for it is a deep bass growl. 
A response is heard from the tap- 
room ; the coachman, in his wooden- 
soled shoes, makes the street echo again 
as he runs across it ; and then there is 
such a struggling, and backing, and 
grating of the kennel, to get the coach- 
door opposite the house-door, that the 
children- are in perfect ecstasies of 
delight. What a commotion ! The 
old lady, who has been stopping there 
for the last month, is going back to 
the country. Out comes box after box, 
and one side of the vehicle is filled 
with luggage in no time ; the children 
get into everybody's way, and the 



youngest, who has upset himself in his 
attempts to carry an umbrella, is borne 
off wounded and kicking. The young- 
sters disappear, and a short pause en- 
sues, during which the old lady is, no 
doubt, kissing them all round in the 
back parlour. She appears at last, fol- 
lowed by her married daughter, all the 
children, and both, the servants, who, 
with the joint assistance of the coach- 
man and waterman, manage to get her 
safely into the coach. A cloak is 
handed in, and a little basket, which 
we could almost swear contains a small 
black bottle, and a paper of sandwiches. 
Up go the steps, bang goes the door, 
" Golden-cross, Charing-cross, Tom, 5 " 
says the waterman ; " Good bye, grand- 
ma," cry the children, off jingles the 
coach at the rate of three miles an 
hour, and the mamma and children 
retire into the house, with the excep- 
tion of one little villain, who runs up 
the street at the top of his speed, pur- 
sued by the servant ; not ill pleased to 
have such an opportunity of displaying 
her attractions. She brings him back, 
and, after casting two or three gracious 
glances across the way, which are 
either intended for us or the potboy 
(we are not quite certain which) shuts 
the door, and the hackney-coach stand 
is again at a stand still. 

We have been frequently amused 
with the intense delight with which " a 
servant of all work," who is sent for a 
coach, deposits herself inside ; and the 
unspeakable gratification which boys, 
who have been despatched on a similar 
errand, appear -to derive from mount- 
ing the box. But we never recollect 
to have been more amused with a 
hackney-coach party, than one we saw 
early the other morning in Tottenham- 
court-road. It was a wedding-party, 
and emerged from one of the inferior 
streets near Fitzroy-square. There 
were the bride, with a thin white dress, 
and a great red face ; and the brides- 
maid, a little, dumpy, good-humoured 
young woman, dressed, of course, in 
the same appropriate costume ; and 
the bridegroom and his chosen friend, 
in blue coats, yellow waistcoats, white 
trousers, and Berlin gloves to match. 



HACKNEY-COACH STANDS. 



51 



They stopped at the corner of the 
street, and called a coach with an air 
of indescribable dignity. The moment 
they were in, the bridesmaid threw a 
red shawl, which she had, no doubt, 
brought on purpose, negligently over 
the number on the door, evidently to 
delude pedestrians into the belief that 
the hackney-coach was a private car- 
riage ; and away they went, perfectly 
satisfied that the imposition was suc- 
cessful, and quite unconscious that 
there was a great staring number stuck 
up behind, on a plate as large as a 
schoolboy's slate. A shilling a mile ! 
— the ride was worth five, at least, to 
them. 

What an interesting book a hackney- 
coach might produce, if it could carry 
as much in its head as it does in its 
body ! The autobiography of a broken- 
down hackney-coach, would surely be 
as amusing as the autobiography of a 
broken-down hackneyed dramatist; and 
it might tell as much of its travels with 
the pole, as others have of their expe- 
ditions to it. How many stories might 
be related of the different people it had 
conveyed on matters of business or 
profit — pleasure or pain ! And how 



many melancholy tales of the same 
people at different periods ! The coun- 
try-girl — the showy, over-dressed wo- 
man — the drunken prostitute ! The 
raw apprentice — the dissipated spend- 
thrift—the thief ! 

Talk of cabs ! Cabs are all very well 
in cases of expedition, when it's a 
matter of neck or nothing, life or 
death, your temporary home or your 
long one. But, beside a cab 's lacking 
that gravity of deportment which so 
peculiarly distinguishes a hackney- 
coach, let it never be forgotten that a 
cab is a thing of yesterday, and that 
he never was anything better. A hack- 
ney-cab has always been a. hackney- 
cab, from his first entry into public 
life ; Avhereas a hackney-coach is a 
remnant of past gentility, a victim to 
fashion, a hanger-on of an old English 
family, wearing their arms, and, in 
days of yore, escorted by men wearing 
their livery, stripped of his finery, and 
thrown upon the world, like a once- 
smart footman when he is no longer 
sufficiently juvenile for his office, pro- 
gressing lower and lower in the scale 
of four-wheeled degradation^ until at 
last it comes to— a stai&d ! 



SKETCHES BY BCZ. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



DOCTORS COMMONS. 



Walking, without any definite object, 
through St. Paul's Churchyard, a little 
•while ago, we happened to turn down 
a street entitled " Paul's-chain," and 
keeping straight forward for a few 
hundred yards, found ourself, as a 
natural consequence, in Doctors' Com- 
mons. Now Doctors' Commons being 
familiar by name to everybody, as the 
place where they grant marriage- 
licences to love-sick couples, and di- 
vorces to unfaithful ones ; register the 
wills of people who have any property 
to leave, and punish hasty gentlemen 
who call ladies by unpleasant names, 
we no sooner discovered that we were 
really within its precincts, than we felt 
a laudable desire to become better 
acquainted therewith ; and as the first 
object of our curiosity was the Court, 
whose decrees can even unloose the 
bonds of matrimony, we procured a 
direction to it ; and bent our steps 
thither without delay. 

Crossing a quiet and shady court- 
yard, paved with stone, and frowned 
upon by old red brick nouses, on the 
doors of which were painted the names 
of sundry learned Chilians, we paused 
before a small, green-baized, brass- 
headed-nailed door, which yielding to 
our gentle push, at once admitted us 
into an old quaint-looking apartment, 
with sunken windows, and black carved 
wainscotting, at the upper end of 
which, seated on a raised, platform, of 
semicircular shape, were about a dozen 
solemn-looking gentlemen, in crimson 
gowns and wigs. 

At a more elevated desk in the 
centre, sat a very fat and red-faced 
gentleman, in tortoise-shell spectacles, 
whose dignified appearance announced 
the judge ; and round a long green- 
baized table below, something like a 
billiard-table without the cushions and 
pockets, were a number of very self- 
important-looking personages, in stiff 
neckcloths, and black gowns with white 



fur collars, whom we at once set down 
as proctors. At the lower end of the 
billiard-table was an individual in an 
arm-chair, and a wig, whom we after- 
wards discovered to be the registrar ; 
and seated behind a little desk, near 
the door, were a respectable-looking 
man in black, of about twenty stone 
weight or thereabouts, and a fat-faced, 
smirking, civil-looking body, in a black 
gown, black kid gloves, knee shorts, 
and silks, with a shirt-frill in his bosom, 
curls on his head, and a silver staff in 
his hand, whom we had no difficulty in 
recognising as the officer of the Court. 
The latter, indeed, speedily set our 
mind at rest upon this point, for, ad- 
vancing to our elbow, and opening a 
conversation forthwith, he had com- 
municated to us, in less than five 
minutes, that he was the apparitor, 
and the other the court-keeper ; that 
this was the Arches Court, and there- 
fore the counsel wore red gowns, and 
the proctors fur collars ; and that when 
the other Courts sat there, they didn't 
wear red gowns or fur collars either ; 
with many other scraps of intelligence 
equally interesting. Besides these two 
officers, there was a little thin old man, 
with long grizzly hair, crouched in a 
remote corner, whose duty, our com- 
municative friend informed us, Avas to 
ring a large hand-bell when the Court 
opened in the morning, and who, for 
aught his appearance betokened to the 
contrary, might have been similarly 
employed, for the last two centuries at 
least. 

The red-faced gentleman in the 
tortoise-shell spectacles had got all the 
talk to himself just then, and very 
well he was doing it, too, only he 
spoke very fast, but that was habit ; 
and rather thick, but that was good 
living. So we had plenty of time to 
look about us. There was one indi- 
vidual who amused us mightily. This 
was one of the bewigged gentlemen in 






DOCTORS' COMMONS. 



53 



the red robes, who was straddling 
before the fire in the centre of the 
Court, in the attitude of the brazen 
Colossus, to the complete exclusion of 
every body else. He had gathered up 
his robe behind, in much the same 
manner as a slovenly woman would 
her petticoats on a very dirty day, in 
order that he might feel the full 
warmth of the fire. His wig was 
put on all awry, with the tail strag- 
gling about his neck, his scanty gray 
trousers and short black gaiters, made 
in the worst possible style, imparted an 
additional inelegant appearance to his 
uncouth person ; and his limp, badly- 
starched shirt-collar almost obscured 
his eyes. We shall never be able to 
claim any credit as a physiognomist 
again, for, after a careful scrutiny of 
this gentleman's countenance, we had 
come to the conclusion that it bespoke 
nothing but conceit and silliness, when 
our friend with the silver staff whis- 
pered in our ear that he was no other 
than a doctor of civil law, and heaven 
knows what besides. So of course we 
were mistaken, and he must be a very 
talented man. He conceals it so well 
though — perhaps with the merciful 
view of not astonishing ordinary people 
too much — that you would suppose him 
to be one of the stupidest dogs alive. 

The gentleman in the spectacles 
having concluded his judgment, and a 
few minutes having been allowed to 
elapse, to afford time for the buzz in 
the Court to subside, the registrar 
called on the next cause, which was 
" the office of the Judge promoted by 
Bumple against Shadberry." A gene- 
ral movement was visible in the 
Court, at this announcement, aud the 
obliging functionary with silver stoff 
whispered us that "there would be 
some fun now, for this was a brawling 
case." 

We were not rendered much the 
wiser by this piece of information, till 
we found by the opening speech of 
the counsel for the promoter, that, 
under a half-obsolete statute of one of 
the Edwards, the court was em- 
powered to visit with the penalty of 
excommunication, any person who 



should be proved guilty of the crime 
of "brawling," or "smiting," in any 
church, or vestry adjoining thereto ; 
and it appeared, by some eight-and- 
twenty affidavits, which were duly 
referred to, that on a certain night, at 
a certain vestry-meeting, in a certain 
parish particularly set forth, Thomas 
Sludberry, the party appeared against 
in that suit, had made use of, and 
applied to Michael Bumple, the pro- 
moter, the words a You be blowed ;" 
and that, on the said Michael Bumple 
and others remonstrating with the said 
Thomas Sludberry on the impropriety 
of his conduct, the said Thomas Slud- 
berry repeated the aforesaid expres- 
sion, " You be blowed ;" and further- 
more desired and requested to know^ 
whether the said Michael Bumple 
" wanted anythingfor himself;" adding, 
" that if the said Michael Bumple did 
want anything for himself, he, the said 
Thomas Sludberry, was the man to 
give it him ;" at the same time 
making use of other heinous and 
sinful expressions, all of which, 
Bumple submitted, came within the 
intent and meaning of the Act ; and 
therefore he, for the soul's health and 
chastening of Sludberry, prayed for 
sentence of excommunication against 
him accordingly. 

Upon these facts a long argument 
was entered into, on both sides, to the 
great edification of a number of per- 
sons interested in the parochial 
squabbles, who crowded the court ; 
and when some very long and grave 
speeches had been made pro and con, 
the red-faced gentleman in the tor- 
toiseshell spectacles took a review of 
the case, which occupied half an hour 
more, and then pronounced upon 
Sludberry the awful sentence of ex- 
communication for a fortnight, and 
payment of the costs of the suit. 
Upon this, Sludberry, who was a little, 
red-faced, sly-looking, ginger-beer- 
seller, addressed the court, and said, 
if they 'd be good enough to take off 
the costs, and excommunicate him for 
the term of his natural life instead, it 
would be much more convenient to 
him, for he never went to church at 



54 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



all. To this appeal the gentleman in 
the spectacles made no oilier reply 
than a look of virtuous indignation ; 
and Sludberry and his friends retired. 
As the man with the silver staff in- 
formed us that the court was on the 
point of rising, we retired too — pon- 
dering, as we walked away, upon the 
beautiful spirit of these ancient eccle- 
siastical laws, the kind and neighbourly 
feelings they are calculated to awaken, 
and the strong attachment to religious 
institutions which they cannot fail to 
engender. 

We were so lost in these meditations, 
that we had turned into the street, 
and run up against a door-post, before 
we recollected where we were walking. 
On looking upwards to see what 
house we had stumbled upon, the 
words a Prerogative-Office," written 
in large characters, met our eye ; and 
as we were in a sight-seeing humour 
and the place was a public one, we 
walked in. 

The room into which we walked, 
was a long, busy -looking place, par- 
titioned off, on either side, into a 
variety of little boxes, in which a few 
clerks were engaged in copying or 
examining deeds. Down the centre 
of the room were several desks nearly 
breast high, at each of which, three or 
four people were standing, poring over 
large volumes. As we knew that 
they were searching for wills, they 
attracted our attention at once. 

It was curious to contrast the lazy 
indifference of the attorneys' clerks 
who were making a search for 
some legal purpose, with the air of 
earnestness and interest which distin- 
guished the strangers to the place, 
who were looking up the will of some 
deceased relative ; the former pausing 
every now and then with an impatient 
yawn, or raising their heads to look at 
the people who passed up and down 
the room: the latter stooping over the 
book, and running down column after 
column of names in the deepest 
abstraction. 

There was one little dirty-faced 
man in a blue apron, who after a 
whole moi*ning's search, extending 



some fifty years back, had just found 
the will to which he wished to refer, 
which one of the officials was reading 
to him in a low hurried voice from a 
thick vellum book with large clasps. 
It was perfectly evident that the more 
the clerk read, the less the man with 
the blue apron understood about the 
matter. When the volume was first 
brought down, he took off his hat,, 
smoothed down his hair, smiled with 
great self-satisfaction, and looked up 
in the reader's face with the air of a 
man who had made up his mind to 
recollect every word he heard. The 
first two or three lines were in- 
telligible enough ; but then the tech- 
nicalities began, and the little man 
began to look rather dubious. Then 
came a whole string of complicated 
trusts, and he was regularity at sea. 
As the reader proceeded, it was quite 
apparent that it was a hopeless case, 
and the little man, with his mouth 
open and his eyes fixed upon his face, 
looked on with an expression of be- 
wilderment and perplexity irresistibly 
ludicrous. 

A little further on, a hard-featured 
old man with a deeply wrinkled face, 
was intently perusing a lengthy will 
with the aid of a pair of horn spec- 
tacles : occasionally pausing from his 
task, and slily noting down some brief 
memorandum of the bequests con- 
tained in it. Every wrinkle about 
his toothless mouth, and sharp keen 
eyes, told of avarice and cunning. 
His clothes were nearly threadbare, 
but it was easy to see that he wore 
them from choice and not from neces- 
sity ; all his looks and gestures down 
to the very small pinches of snuff 
which he every now and then took 
from a little tin canister, told of 
wealth, and penury, and avarice. 

As he leisurely closed the register, 
put up his spectacles, and folded his 
scraps of paper in a large leathern 
pocket-book, we thought what a nice 
hard bargain he was driving with 
some poverty-stricken legatee, who, 
tired of waiting year after year, until 
some life interest should fall in, was 
selling his chance, just as it began to 



LONDON RECREATIONS. 



55 



grow most valuable, for a twelfth 
part of its worth. It was a good spe- 
culation — a very safe one. The old 
man stowed his pocket-book carefully 
in the breast of his great-coat, and 
hobbled away with a leer of triumph. 
That will had made him ten years 
younger at the lowest computation. 

Having commenced our observa- 
tions, we should certainly have 
extended them to another dozen of 
people at least, had not a sudden 
shutting up and putting away of the 
worm-eaten old books, warned us that 
the time for closing the office had 
arrived ; and thus deprived us of a 
pleasure, and spared our readers an 
infliction. 

We naturally fell into a train of 



reflection as we walked homewards, 
upon the curious old records of likings 
and dislikings ; of jealousies and re- 
venges ; of affection defying the 
power of death, and hatred pursued 
beyond the grave, which these de- 
positories contain ; silent but striking 
tokens, some of them, of excellence of 
heart, and nobleness of soul ; melan- 
choly examples, others, of the worst 
passions of human nature. How many 
men as they lay speechless and help- 
less on the bed of death, would have 
given worlds but for the strength and 
power to blot out the silent evidence 
of animosity and bitterness, which 
now stands registered against, them in 
Doctors' Commons ! 



CHAPTER IX. 



LONDON RECREATIONS. 



The wish of persons in the humbler 
classes of life, to ape the manners and 
customs of those whom fortune has 
placed above them, is often the subject 
cf remark, and not unfre'quently of 
complaint. The inclination may, and 
no doubt does, exist to a great extent, 
among the small gentility — the would- 
be aristocrats — of the middle classes. 
Tradesmen and clerks, with fashiona- 
ble novel-reading families, and circu- 
lating-library-subscribing daughters, 
get up small assemblies in humble 
imitation of Almack's, and promenade 
the dingy " large room " of some 
second-rate hotel with as much com- 
placency as the enviable few who are 
privileged to exhibit their magnifi- 
cence in that exclusive haunt of fashion 
and foolery. Aspiring young ladies, 
who read flaming accounts of some 
" fancy fair in high life," suddenly 
grow desperately charitable ; visions 
of admiration and matrimony float 
before their eyes ; some wonderfully 
meritorious institution, which, by the 
strangest accident in the world, has 
never been heard of before, is dis- 



covered to be in a languishing con- 
dition : Thomson's great room, or 
Johnson's nursery-ground is forthwith 
engaged, and the aforesaid young 
ladies, from mere charity, exhibit 
themselves for three days, from twelve 
to four, for the small charge of one 
shilling per head ! With the excep- 
tion of these classes of society, however, 
and a few weak and insignificant 
persons, we do not think the attempt 
at imitation to which we have alluded, 
prevails in any great degree. The 
different character of the recreations 
of different classes, has often afforded 
us amusement ; and we have chosen 
it for the subject of our present 
sketch, in the hope that it may possess 
some amusement for our readers. 

If the regular City man, who leaves 
Lloyd's at five o'clock, and drives 
home to Hackney, Clapton, Stamford- 
hill, or elsewhere, can be said to have 
any daily recreation beyond his dinner, 
it is his garden. He never does anything 
to it with his own hands ; but he takes 
great pride in it notwithstanding ; and 
if you are desirous of paying your 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



addresses to the youngest daughter, be 
sure to be in raptures with every 
flower and shrub it contains. If your 
poverty of expression compel you to 
make any distinction between the two, 
we would, certainly recommend your 
bestowing more admiration on his 
garden than his wine. He always 
takes a walk round it, before he starts 
for town in the morning, and is par- 
ticularly anxious that the fish-pond 
should be kept specially neat. If you 
call on him on Sunday in summer-time, 
about an hour before dinner, you will 
find him sitting in an arm-chair, on 
the lawn behind the house, with a 
straw hat on, reading a Sunday paper. 
A short distance from him you will 
most likely observe a handsome paro- 
quet in a large brass-wire cage ; ten 
to one but the two eldest girls are 
loitering in one of the side walks 
accompanied by a couple of young 
gentlemen, who are holding parasols 
over them — of course only to keep the 
sun off — while the younger children, 
with the under nursery-maid, are 
strolling listlessly about, in the shade. 
Beyond these occasions, his delight in 
his garden appears to arise more from 
the consciousness of possession than 
actual enjoyment of it. When he 
drives you down to dinner on a week- 
day, he is rather fatigued with the 
occupations of the morning, and tolera- 
bly cross into the bargain ; but when 
the cloth is removed, and he has drank 
three or four glasses of his favourite 
port, he orders the French windows of 
his dining-room (which of course look 
into the garden) to be opened, and 
throwing a silk handkerchief over his 
head, and leaning back in his arm- 
chair, descants at considerable length 
upon its beauty, and the cost of main- 
taining it. This is to impress you — 
who are a young friend of the family 
— with a due sense of the excellence 
of the garden, and the wealth of its 
owner ; and when he has exhausted 
the subject, he goes to sleep. 

There is another and a very different 
class of men, whose recreation is their 
garden. An individual of this class, 
resides some short distance from town 



— say in the Hampstead-road, or the 
Kilburn-road, or any other road where 
the houses are small and neat, and 
have little slips of back garden. He 
and his wife — who is as clean and com- 
pact a little body as himself — have 
occupied the same house ever since he 
retired from business twenty years 
ago. They have no family. They 
once had a son, who died at about five 
years old. The child's portrait hangs 
over the mantelpiece in the best sitting- 
room, and a little cart he used to draw 
about, is carefully preserved as a relic. 
In fine weather the old gentleman 
is almost constantly in the garden ; 
and when it is too wet to go into it, 
he will look out of the window at it r 
by the hour together. He has always 
something to do there, and you will 
see him digging, and sweeping, and 
cutting, and planting, with manifest 
delight. In spring time, there is no 
end to the sowing of seeds, and stick- 
ing little bits of wood over them, with 
labels, which look like epitaphs to their 
memory ; and in the evening, when the 
sun has gone down, the perseverance 
with which he lugs a great watering- 
pot about is perfectly astonishing. 
The only other recreation he has, is 
the newspaper, which he peruses every 
day, from beginning to end, generally 
reading the most interesting pieces of 
intelligence to his wife, during break- 
fast. The old lady is very fond of 
flowers, as the hyacinth-glasses in the 
parlour- window, and geranium-pots in 
the little front court, testify. She 
takes great pride in the garden too : 
and when one of the four fruit-trees 
produces rather a larger gooseberry 
than usual, it is carefully preserved 
under a wine-glass on the sideboard, 
for the edification of visitors, who are 
duly informed that Mr. So-and-so 
planted the tree which produced it,, 
with his own hands. On a summer's 
evening, when the large watering-pot 
has been filled and emptied some four- 
teen times, and the old couple have 
quite exhausted themselves by trotting 
about, you will see them sitting hap- 
pily together in the little summer- 
house, enjoying the calm and peace of 



LONDON RECREATIONS. 



57 



the twilight, and watching the shadows 
as they fall upon the garden, and gra- 
dually growing thicker and more 
sombre, obscure the tints of their 
gayest flowers — no bad emblem of the 
years that have silently rolled over 
their heads, deadening in their course 
the brightest hues of early hopes and 
feelings which have long since faded 
away. These are their only recreations, 
and they require no more. They have 
within themselves, the materials of 
comfort and content ; and the only 
anxiety of each, is to die before the 
other. 

This is no ideal sketch. There used 
to be many old people of this descrip- 
tion ; their numbers may have dimi- 
nished, and may decrease still more. 
Whether the course female education 
has taken of late days — whether the 
pursuit of giddy frivolities, and empty 
nothings, has tended to unfit women 
for that quiet domestic life, in which 
they show far more beautifully than 
in the most crowded assembly, is a 
question we should feel little gratifica- 
tion in discussing : we hope not. 

Let us turn now, to another portion 
of the London population, whose 
recreations present about as strong a 
contrast as can well be conceived — we 
mean the Sunday pleasurers ; and let 
us beg our readers to imagine them- 
selves stationed by our side in some 
well-known rural " Tea-gardens." 

The heat is intense this afternoon, 
and the people, of whom there are 
additional parties arriving every 
moment, look as warm as the tables 
which have been recently painted, and 
have the appearance of being red-hot. 
What a dust and noise ! Men and 
women — boys and girls — sweethearts 
and married people — babies in arms, 
and children in chaises — pipes and 
shrimps — cigars and periwinkles — tea 
and tobacco. Gentlemen, in alarming 
waistcoats, and steel watch-guards, 
promenading about, three abreast, 
with surprising dignity (or as the 
gentleman in the next box facetiously 
observes, " cutting it uncommon fat ! ") 
— ladies, with great, long, white 
pocket-handkerchiefs like small table- 



cloths, in their hands, chasing one 
another on the grass in the most 
playful and interesting manner, with 
the view of attracting the attention of 
the aforesaid gentlemen — husbands in 
perspective ordering bottles of ginger- 
beer for the objects of their affections, 
with a lavish disregard of expense ; 
and the said objects washing down 
huge quantities of "shrimps" and 
" winkles," with an equal disregard of 
their own bodily health and subsequent 
comfort — boys, with great silk hats 
just balanced on the top of their 
heads, smoking cigars, and trying to 
look as if they liked them — gentlemen 
in pink shirts and blue waistcoats, 
occasionally upsetting either them- 
selves, or somebody else, with their 
own canes. 

Some of the finery of these people 
provokes a smile, but they are all 
clean, and happy, and disposed to be 
good-natured and sociable. Those two 
motherly-looking women in the smart 
pelisses, who are chatting so confiden- 
tially, inserting a " ma'am" at every 
fourth word, scraped an acquaintance 
about a quarter of an hour ago : it 
originated in admiration of the little boy 
who belongs to one of them — that 
diminutive specimen of mortality in 
the three-cornered pink satin hat Avith 
black feathers. The two men in the 
blue coats and drab trousers, who are 
walking up and down, smoking their 
pipes, are their husbands. The party 
in the opposite box are a pretty fair 
specimen of the generality of the 
visitors. These are the father and 
mother, and old grandmother : a 
young man and woman, and an indi- 
vidual addressed by the euphonious 
title of "Uncle Bill," who is evi- 
dently the wit of the party. They 
have some half-dozen children with 
them, but it is scarcely necessary to 
notice the fact, for that is a matter of 
course here. Every woman in " the 
gardens," who has been manned for 
any length of time, must have had 
twins on two or three occasions; it 
is impossible to account for the 
extent of juvenile population in any 
other way. 



5E 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



Observe the inexpressible delight of 
the old grandmother, at Uncle Bill's 
splendid joke of "tea for four : bread 
and butter for forty ;" and the loud 
explosion of mirth which follows his 
watering a paper "pigtail" on the 
waiter's collar. The young man is 
evidently " keeping company" with 
Uncle Bill's niece : and Uncle Bill's 
hints — such as " Don't forget me at 
the dinner, you know," "I shall look 
out for the cake, Sally," " I '11 be god- 
father to your first — wager it 's a boy," 
and so forth, are equally embarrassing 
to the young people, and delightful to 
the elder ones. As to the old grand- 
mother, she is in perfect ecstasies, 
and does nothing but laugh herself 
into fits of coughing, until they have 
finished the " gin-and-water warm 
with," of which Uncle Bill ordered 
"glasses round" after tea, "just to 
keep the night air out, and do it up 



comfortable and riglar arter sitch an 
as-tonishing hot day ! " 

It is getting dark, and the people 
begin to move. The field leading to 
town is quite full of them ; the little 
hand-chaises are dragged wearily 
along, the children are tired, and 
amuse themselves and the company 
generally by crying, or resort to the 
much more pleasant expedient of 
going to sleep — the mothers begin to 
wish they were at home again — sweet- 
hearts grow more sentimental than 
ever, as the time for parting arrives 
— the gardens look mournful enough, 
by the light of the two lanterns which 
hang against the trees for the con- 
venience of smokers — and the waiters, 
who have been running about inces- 
santly for the last six hours, think they 
feel a little tired, as they count their 
glasses and their gains. 



THE RIVER. 



59 



CHAPTER X. 



THE RIVER. 



" Are you fond of the water ?" is a 
question very frequently asked, in 
hot summer weather, by amphibious- 
oking young men. " Very," is the 
g neral reply. "An'tyou?" — "Hardly 
ever off it," is the response, accom- 
panied by sundry adjectives, ex- 
pressive of the speaker's heartfelt 
admiration of that element. Now, 
with all respect for the opinion of 
society in general, and cutter clubs in 
pa 'ticular, we humbly suggest that 
soi ne of the most painful reminiscences 
in the mind of every individual who 
has occasionally disported himself on 
the Thames, must be connected with 
his aquatic recreations. Who ever 
heard of a successful water-party? — 
or t o put the question in a still more 
intelligible form, who ever saw one ? 
We have been on water excursions 
out of number, but we solemnly 
dec! are that we cannot call to mind 
one single occasion of the kind, which 
was not marked by more miseries 
than any one would suppose could 
reas onably be crowded into the space 
of some eight or nine hours. Some- 
thing has always gone wrong. Either 
the cork of the salad-dressing has 
come out, or the most anxiously ex- 
pected member of the party has not 
come out, or the most disagreeable 
man in company would come out, or a 
child or two have fallen into the 
water, or the gentleman who under- 
took to steer has endangered every 
bod\ 's life all the way, or the gentle- 
men who volunteered to row have 
been "out of practice," and per- 
formed very alarming evolutions, 
putting their oars down into the water 
and not being able to get them up 
again, or taking terrific pulls without 
putting them in at all ; in either case, 
pitching over on the backs of their 
heads with startling violence, and 
exhibiting the soles of their pumps to 



the "sitters" in the boat, in a very hu- 
miliating manner. 

We grant that the banks of the 
Thames are very beautiful at Rich- 
mond and Twickenham, and other 
distant havens, often sought though 
seldom reached ; but from the " Red-, 
us" back to Blackfriar's-bridge, the 
scene is wonderfully changed. The 
Penitentiary is a noble building, no 
doubt, and the sportive youths who 
" go in" at that particular part of the 
river, on a summer's evening, may be 
all very well in perspective; but when 
you are obliged to keep in shore com- 
ing home, and the young ladies will 
colour up, and look perseveringly the 
other way, while the married dittoes 
cough slightly, and stare very hard at 
the water, you feel awkward — espe- 
cially if you happen to have been 
attempting the most distant approach 
to sentimentality, for an hour or two 
previously. 

Although experience and suffering 
have produced in our minds the 
result we have just stated, we are by 
no means blind to a proper sense of 
the fun which a looker-on may extract 
from the amateurs of boating. What 
can be more amusing than Searle's 
yard on a fine Sunday morning ? It 's 
a Richmond tide, and some dozen 
boats are preparing for the reception 
of the parties who have engaged them. 
Two are three fellows in great rough 
trousers and Guernsey shirts, are 
getting them ready by easy stages ; 
now coming down the yard with a 
pair of sculls and a cushion — then 
having a chat with the "jack," who, 
like all his tribe, seems to be wholly 
incapable of doing anything but loung- 
ing about — then going back again, 
and returning with a rudder-line and 
a stretcher — then solacing themselves 
with another chat — and then wonder- 
ing, with their hands in their capa- 



60 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



clous pockets, u where them gentle- 
men 's got to as ordered the six." 
One of these, the head man, with the 
legs of his trousers carefully tucked 
up at the bottom, to admit the water, we 
presume — for it is an element in which 
he is infinitely more at home than on 
land — is quite a character, and shares 
with the defunct oyster-swallower 
the celebrated name of " Dando." 
Watch him, as taking a few minutes' 
respite from his toils, he negligently 
seats himself on the edge of a boat, 
and fans his broad bushy chest with 
a cap scarcely half so furry. Look at 
his magnificent, though reddish 
whiskers, and mark the somewhat 
native humour with which he " chaffs" 
the boys and prentices, or cunningly 
gammons the gen'lm'n into the gift of a 
glass of gin, of which we verily believe 
he swallows in one day as much as any 
six ordinary men, without ever being 
one atom the worse for it. 

But the party arrives, and Dando 
relieved from his state of uncertainty, 
starts up into activity. They approach 
in full aquatic costume, with round 
blue jackets, striped shirts, and caps 
of all sizes and patterns, from the 
velvet skull-cap of French manufac- 
ture, to the easy head-dress familiar 
to the students of the old spelling- 
books, as having, on the authority 
of the portrait, formed part of 
the costume of the Reverend Mr. 
Dilworth. 

This is the most amusing time to 
observe a regular Sunday water-party. 
There has evidently been up to this 
period no inconsiderable degree of 
boasting on everybody's part relative 
to his knowledge of navigation ; the 
sight of the water rapidly cools their 
courage, and the air of self-denial with 
which each of them insists on some- 
body else's taking an oar, is perfectly 
delightful. At length, after a great 
deal of changing and fidgeting, conse- 
quent upon the election of a stroke- 
oar : the inability of one gentleman to 
pull on this side, of another to pull 
on that, and of a third to pull at all, 
the boat's crew are seated. "Shove 
her off ! " cries the cockswain, who 



looks as easy and comfortable as if li9 
were steering in the Bay of Biscay. 
The order is obeyed ; the boat is im- 
mediately turned completely round, 
and proceeds towards Westminster- 
bridge, amidst such a splashing and 
struggling as never was seen before, 
except when the Royal George went 
down. a Back wa'ater, sir,'* shouts 
Dando, " Back wa'ater, you sir, aft ;" . 
upon which everybody thinking he 
must be the individual referred to, 
they all back water, and back comes 
the boat, stern first, to the spot whence 
it started. " Back water, you sir, aft ; 
pull round, you sir, for'ad, can't you ?" 
shouts Dando, in a frenzy of excite- 
ment. " Pull round, Tom, can't you ? " 
re-echoes one of the party. " Tom 
an't for'ad," replies another. " Yes, 
he is," cries a third ; and the unfortu- 
nate young man, at the imminent risk 
of breaking a blood-vessel, pulls and 
pulls, until the head of the boat fairly 
lies in the direction of Vauxhall-bridge. 
" That 's right — now pull all on you ! " 
shouts Dando again, adding, in an 
under tone, to somebody by hirm 
" Blowed if hever I see sich a set of 
muffs ! " and away jogs the boat in a 
zigzag direction, every one of the six 
oars dipping into the water at a differ- 
ent time ; and the yard is once more 
clear, until the arrival of the next 
party. 

A well-contested rowing-match on 
tke Thames, is a very lively and inte- 
resting scene. The water is studded 
with boats of all sorts, kinds, and de- 
scriptions ; places in the coal-barges 
at the different wharfs are let to crowds 
of spectators, beer and tobacco flow 
freely about ; men, women, and chil- 
dren wait for the start in breathless 
expectation, cutters of six and eight 
oars glide gently up and down, waiting 
to accompany their proteges during the 
race ; bands of music add to the ani- 
mation, if not to the harmony of the 
scene, groups of watermen are assem- 
bled at the different stairs, discussing 
the merits of the respective candi- 
dates : and the prize wherry which is 
rowed slowly about by a pair of skulls, 
is an object of general interest. 



THE RIVER. 



61 






Two o'clock strikes, and everybody 
looks anxiously in the direction of the 
bridge through which the candidates 
for the prize will come — half-past two, 
and the general attention which has 
been preserved so long begins to flag, 
when suddenly a gun is heard, and the 
noise of distant hurra'ing along each 
bank of the river— every head is bent 
forward — the noise draws nearer and 
nearer — the boats which have been 
waiting at the bridge start briskly up 
the river, and a well-manned galley 
shoots through the arch, the sitters 
cheering on the boats behind them, 
which are not yet visible. 

" Here they are," is the general cry 
— and through darts the first boat, the 
men in her, stripped to the skin, and 
exerting every muscle to preserve the 
advantage they have gained — four other 
boats follow close astern ; there are 
not two boats' length between them — 
the shouting is tremendous, and the 
interest intense. " Go on, Pink " — 
"Give it her, Red "— « Sulliwin for 
ever " — " Bravo ! George " — " Now, 
Tom, now — now — now — why don't 
your partner stretch out ? " — " Two 
pots to a pint on Yellow," &c. &c. 
Every little public-house fires its gun, 
and hoists its flag; and the men 
who win the heat, come in, amidst a 
splashing and shouting, and banging 
and confusion, which no one can ima- 
gine who has not witnessed it, and of 
which any description would convey a 
very faint idea. 

One of the most amusing places we 
know, is the steam-wharf of the Lon- 
don-bridge, or St. Katharine's Dock 
Company, on a Saturday morning in 
summer, when the Gravesend and 
Margate steamers are usually crowded 
to excess; and as we have just taken 
a glance at the river above bridge, we 
hope our readers will not object to 
accompany us on board a Gravesend 
packet. 

Coaches are every moment setting 
down at the entrance to the wharf, and 
the stare of bewildered astonishment 
with which the " fares " resign them- 
selves and their luggage into the hands 
of the porters, who seize all the pack- 



ages-at once as a matter of course, and 
run away with them, heaven knows 
where, is laughable in the extreme. A 
Margate boat lies alongside the wharf, 
the Gravesend boat (which starts first) 
lies alongside that again ; and as a 
temporary communication is formed 
between the two, by means of a plank 
and hand-rail, the natural confusion of 
the scene is by no means diminished. 

" Gravesend i " inquires a stout 
father of a stout family, who follow 
him, under the guidance of their mo- 
ther, and a servant, at the no small 
risk of two or three of them being lefff 
behind in the confusion. " Gravesend V 

" Pass on, if you please, sir," replies 
the attendant — " other boat, sir." 

Hereupon the stout father, being 
rather mystified, and the stout mother 
rather distracted by maternal anxiety, 
the whole party deposit themselves in 
the Margate boat, and after having 
congratulated himself on having se- 
cured very comfortable seats, the stout 
father sallies to the chimney to look 
for his luggage, which he has a faint 
recollection of having given some man, 
something, to take somewhere. No 
luggage, however, bearing the most re- 
mote resemblance to his own, in shape 
or form, is to be discovered ; on which 
the stout father calls very loudly for 
an officer, to whom he states the case, 
in the presence of another father of 
another family — a little thin man — 
who entirely concurs with him (the 
stout father) in thinking that it 's high 
time something was done with these 
steam companies, and that as the Cor- 
poration Bill failed to do it, something 
else must ; for really people's property 
is not to be sacrificed in this way ; and 
that if the luggage isn't restored with- 
out delay, he will take care it shall be 
put in the papers, for the public is not 
to be the victim of these great mono- 
polies. To this, the officer, in his turn, 
replies, that that company, ever since 
it has been St. Kat'rine's Dock Com- 
pany, has px'otected life and property ; 
that if it had been the London Bridge 
Wharf Company, indeed, he shouldn't 
have wondered, seeing that the morality 
of that company (they being the oppo- 



62 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



sition) can't be answered for, by no 
one ; but as it is, he 's convinced there 
must be some mistake, and he wouldn't 
mind making a solemn oath afore a 
magistrate that the gentleman '11 find 
his luggage afore he gets to Margate. 

Here the stout father, thinking he 
is making a capital point, replies, that 
as it happens he is not going to 
Margate at all, and that " Passenger 
to Gravesend" was on the luggage, in 
letters of full two inches long ; on 
which the officer rapidly explains the 
mistake, and the stout mother, and 
the stout children, and the servant, are 
hurried with all possible despatch on 
board the Gravesend boat, which they 
reach just in time to discover that 
their luggage is there, and that their 
comfortable seats are not. Then the 
bell, which is the signal for the Graves- 
end boat starting, begins to ring most 
furiously : and people keep time to 
the bell, by running in and out of our 
boat at a double-quick pace. The bell 
stops ; the boat starts : people who 
have been taking leave of their friends 
on board, are carried away against 
their will ; and people who have been 
taking leave of their friends on shore, 
find that they have performed a very 
needless ceremony, in consequence of 
their not being carried away at all. 
The regular passengers, who have sea- 
son-tickets, go below to breakfast ; 
people who have purchased morning 
papers, compose themselves to read 
them ; and people who have not been 
down the river before, think that both 
the shipping and the water, look a 
great deal better at a distance. 

When we get down about as far as 
Blackwall, and begin to move at a 
quicker rate, the spirits of the passen- 
gers appear to rise in proportion. Old 
women who have brought large wicker 
hand-baskets with them, set seriously 
to work at the demolition of heavy 
sandwiches, and pass round a wine- 
glass, which is frequently replenished 
from a flat bottlelikeastomach- warmer, 
with considerable glee: handing it first 
to the gentleman in the foraging-cap, 
who plays the harp — partly as an 



expression of satisfaction with his pre- 
vious exertions, and partly to induce 
him to play u Dumbledumb - deary," 
for K Alick" to dance to ; which being 
done, Alick, who is a damp earthy 
child in red worsted socks, takes cer- 
tain small jumps upon the deck, to the 
unspeakable satisfaction of his family 
circle. Girls who have brought the 
first volume of some new novel in their 
reticule, become extremely plaintive, 
and expatiate to Mr. Brown, or young 
Mr. O'Brien, who has been looking 
over them, on the blueness of the sky, 
and brightness of the water ; on which 
Mr. Brown or Mr. O'Brien, as the 
case may be, remarks in a low voice 
that he has been quite insensible of 
late to the beauties of nature — that his 
whole thoughts and wishes have centred 
in one object alone — whereupon the 
young lady looks up, and failing in her 
attempt to appear unconscious, looks 
down again ; and turns over the next 
leaf with great difficulty, in order to 
afford opportunity for a lengthened 
pressure of the hand. 

Telescopes, sandwiches, and glasses 
of brandy -and -water cold without, 
begin to be in great requisition ; and 
bashful men who have been looking 
down the hatchway at the engine, find, 
to their great relief, a subject on which 
they can converse with one another — 
and a copious one too — Steam. 

" Wonderful tiling steam,sir." "Ah! 
(a deep-drawn sigh) it is indeed, sir." 
" Great power, sir." " Immense — im- 
mense ! " " Great deal done by steam, 
sir." * Ah ! (another sigh at the 
immensity of the subject, and a 
knowing shake of the head) you may 
say that, sir." "Still in its infancy, 
they say, sir." Novel remarks of 
this kind, are generally the com- 
mencement of a conversation which is 
prolonged until the conclusion of the 
trip, and, perhaps, lays the foundation 
of a speaking acquaintance between 
half a dozen gentlemen, who, having 
their families at Gravesend, take sea- 
son-tickets for the boat, and dine on 
board regularly every afternoon. 



ASTLEY'S. 



33 



CHAPTER XL 



We never see any very large, staring, 
black Roman capitals, in a book, or 
shop-window, or placarded on a wall, 
without their immediately recalling to 
our mind an indistinct and confused 
recollection of the time when we were 
first initiated in the mysteries of the 
alphabet. We almost fancy we see 
the pin's point following the letter, to 
impress its form more strongly on our 
bewildered imagination; and wince 
involuntarily, as we remember the hard 
knuckles with which the reverend old 
lady who instilled into our mind the 
first principles of education for nine- 
pence per week, or ten and sixpence 
per quarter, was wont to poke our 
juvenile head occasionally, by way of 
adjusting the confusion of ideas in 
which we were generally involved. 
The same kind of feeling pursues us 
in many other instances, but there is 
no place which recals so strongly our 
recollections of childhood as Astley's. 
It was not a " Royal Amphitheatre " 
in those days, nor had Ducrow arisen 
to shed the light of classic taste and 
portable gas over the sawdust of the 
circus ; but the whole character of the 
place was the same, the pieces were 
the same, the clown's jokes were the 
same, the riding-masters were equally 
grand, the comic performers equally 
witty, the tragedians equally hoarse, 
and the "highly-trained chargers" 
equally spirited. Astley's has altered 
for the better — we have changed for 
the worse. Our histrionic taste is 
gone, and with shame we confess, that 
Ave are far more delighted and amused 
with the audience, than with the 
pageantry we once so highly appre- 
ciated. 

We like to watch a regular Astley's 
party in the Easter or Midsummer 
holidays — pa and ma, and nine or ten 
children, varying from five foot six to 
two foot eleven : from fourteen years 
of age to four. We had just taken 



our seat in one of the boxes, in the 
centre of the house, the other night, 
when the next was occupied by just 
such a party as we should have at- 
tempted to describe, had we depicted 
our beau ideal of a group of Astley's 
visitors. 

First of all, there came three little 
boys and a little girl, who, in pur- 
suance of pa's directions, issued in a 
very audible voice from the box-door, 
occupied the front row ; then two 
more little girls were ushered in by a 
young lady, evidently the governess. 
Then came three more little boys, 
dressed like the first, in blue jackets 
and trousers, with lay-down shirt-col- 
lars : then a child in a braided frock 
and high state of astonishment, with 
very large round eyes, opened to their 
utmost width, was lifted over the seats 
— a process which occasioned a con- 
siderable display of little pink legs — 
then came ma and pa, and then the 
eldest son, a boy of fourteen years old, 
who was evidently trying to look as if 
he did not belong to the family. 

The first five minutes were occupied 
in taking the shawls off the little girls, 
and adjusting the bows which orna- 
mented their hair ; then it was provi- 
dentially discovered that one of the 
little boys was seated behind a pillar 
and could not see, so the governess 
was stuck behind the pillar, and the 
boy lifted into her place. Then pa 
drilled the boys, and directed the stow- 
ing away of their pocket-handker- 
chiefs ; and ma having first nodded 
and winked to the governess to pull 
the girls' frocks a little more off their 
shoulders, stood up to review the little 
troop — an inspection which appeared 
to terminate much to her own satis- 
faction, for she looked with a compla- 
cent air at pa, who was standing up at 
the further end of the seat. Pa re- 
turned the glance, and blew his nose 
very- emphatically ; and the poor 



64 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



governess peeped out from behind the 
pillar, and timidly tried to catch ma's 
eye, with a look expressive of her high 
admiration of the whole family. Then 
two of the little boys who had been 
discussing the point whether Astley's 
was more than twice as large as Drury- 
lane, agreed to refer it to "George" 
for his decision ; at which " George," 
who was no other than the young gen- 
tleman before noticed, waxed indig- 
nant, and remonstrated in no very 
gentle terms on the gross impropriety 
of having his name repeated in so loud 
a voice at a public place, on which all 
the children laughed very heartily, 
and one of the little boys wound up by 
expressing his opinion, that " George 
began to think himself quite a man 
now," whereupon both pa and ma 
laughed too ; and George (who carried 
a dress cane and was cultivating 
whiskers) muttered that " William al- 
ways was encouraged in his imperti- 
nence ;" and assumed a look of pro- 
found contempt, which lasted the whole 
evening. 

The play began, and the interest of 
the little boys knew no bounds. Pa 
was clearly interested too, although he 
very unsuccessfully endeavoured to look 
as if he wasn't. As for ma, she was 
perfectly overcome by the drollery of 
the principal comedian, and laughed 
till every one of the immense bows on 
her ample cap trembled, at which the 
governess peeped out from behind the 
pillar again, and whenever she could 
catch ma's eye, put her handkerchief 
to her mouth, and appeared, as in duty 
bound, to be in convulsions of laughter 
also. Then when the man in the 
splendid armour vowed to rescue the 
lady or perish in the attempt, the little 
boys applauded vehemently, especially 
one little fellow who was apparently 
on a visit to the family, and had been 
carrying on a child's flirtation, the 
whole evening, with a small coquette 
of twelve years old, who looked like a 
model of her mamma on a reduced 
scale ; and who in common with the 
other little girls (who generally speak- 
ing have even more coquettishness 
about them than much older ones) 



looked very properly shocked, when 
the knight's squire kissed the princess's 
confidential chambermaid. 

When the scenes in the circle com- 
menced, the children were more de- 
lighted than ever ; and the wish to see 
what was going forward, completely 
conquering pa's dignity, he stood up 
in the box, and applauded as loudly as 
any of them. Between each feat of 
horsemanship, the governess leant 
across to ma, and retailed the clever 
remarks of the children on that which 
had preceded : and ma, in the open- 
ness of her heart, offered the governess 
an acidulated drop, and the governess, 
gratified to be taken notice of, retired 
behind her pillar again with a brighter 
countenance : and the whole party 
seemed quite happy, except the exqui- 
site in the back of the box, who, being 
too grand to take any interest in the 
children, and too insignificant to be 
taken notice of by any body else, occu- 
pied himself, from time to time, in 
rubbing the place where the whiskers 
ought to be, and was completely alone 
in his glory. 

We defy any one who has been to 
Astley's two or three times, and is 
consequently capable of appreciating 
the perseverance with which precisely 
the same jokes are repeated night after 
night, and season after season, not to 
be amused with one part of the per- 
formances at least — we mean the 
scenes in the circle. For ourself, we 
know that when the hoop, composed of 
jets of gas, is let down, the curtain 
drawn up for the convenience of the 
half-price on their ejectment from the 
ring, the orange-peel cleared away, and 
the sawdust shaken, with mathematical 
precision, into a complete circle, we 
feel as much enlivened as the youngest 
child present ; and actually join in the 
laugh which follows the clown's shrill 
shout of " Here we are ! " just for old 
acquaintance' sake. Nor can we quite 
divest ourself of our old feeling of reve- 
rence for the riding-master, who follows 
the clown with a long whip in his hand, 
and bows to the audience with graceful 
dignity. He is none of your second- 
rate riding-masters in nankeen dress- 



ASTLEY'S. 



65 



ing-gowns, with brown frogs, but the 
regular gentleman-attendant on the 
principal riders, who always wears a 
military uniform with a table-cloth 
inside the breast of the coat, in which 
costume he forcibly reminds one of a 
fowl trussed for roasting. He is — but 
why should we attempt to describe 
that of which no description can convey 
an adequate idea ? Everybody knows 
the man, and everybody remembers 
his polished boots, his graceful de- 
meanour, stiff, as some misjudging 
persons have in their jealousy consi- 
dered it, and the splendid head of 
black hair, parted high on the fore- 
head, to impart to the countenance an 
appearance of deep thought and poetic 
melancholy. His soft and pleasing 
voice, too, is in perfect unison with his 
noble bearing, as he humours the clown 
by indulging in a little badinage ; and 
the striking recollection of his own dig- 
nity, with which he exclaims, " Now, 
sir, if you please, inquire for Miss 
Woolford, sir," can never be forgotten. 
The graceful air, too, with which he 
introduces Miss Woolford into the 
arena, and, after assisting her to the 
saddle, follows her fairy courser round 
the circle, can never fail to create a 
deep impression in the bosom of every 
female servant present. 

When Miss Woolford, and the horse, 
and the orchestra, all stop together to 
take breath, he urbanely takes part in 
some such dialogue as the following 
(commenced by the clown) : " I say, 
sir !" — "Well, sir?" (it's always con- 
ducted in the politest manner.) — ei Did 
you ever happen to hear I was in the 
army, sir?" — "No, sir." — "Oh, yes, 
sir — I can go through my exercise, 
sir." — " Indeed, sir !" — " Shall I do it 
now, sir I " — " If you please, sir ; come, 
sir — make haste " (a cut" with the long 
whip, and " Ha' done now — I don't 
like it," from the clown). Here the 
clown throws himself on the ground, 
aud goes through a variety of gym- 
nastic convulsions, doubling himself 
up, and untying himself again, and 
making himself look very like a man 
in the most hopeless extreme of human 
agony, to the vociferous delight of the | 

No. 177. f 



gallery, until he is interrupted by a 
second cut from the long whip, and a 
request to see " what Miss Woolford 's 
stopping for ?" On which, to the inex- 
pressible mirth of the gallery, he ex- 
claims, " Now, Miss Woolford, what 
can I come for to go, for to fetch, for 
to bring, for to carry, for to do, for 
you, ma'am I " On the lady's announc- 
ing with a sweet smile that she wants 
the two flags, they are with sundry 
grimaces, procured and handed up ; 
the clown facetiously observing after 
the performance of the latter cere-^ 
mony — " He, he, oh ! I say, sir, Miss 
Woolford knows me ; she smiled at 
me." Another cut from the whip, a 
burst from the orchestra, a start from 
the horse, and round goes Miss Wool- 
ford again on her graceful performance, 
to the delight of every member of the 
audience, young or old. The next 
pause affords an opportunity for similar 
witticisms, the only additional fun being 
that of the clown making ludicrous 
grimaces at the riding-master every 
time his back is turned ; and finally 
quitting the circle by jumping over his 
head, having previously directed his 
attention another way. 

Did any of our readers ever notice 
the class of people, who hang about 
the stage-doors of our minor theatres 
in the daytime. You will rarely pass 
one of these entrances without seeing 
a group of three or four men con- 
versing on the pavement, with an inde- 
scribable public-house-parlour swagger, 
and a kind of conscious air, peculiar to 
people of this description. They always 
seem to think they are exhibiting ; the 
lamps are ever before them. That 
young fellow in the faded brown coat, 
and very full light green trousers, pulls 
down the wristbands of his check shirt, 
as ostentatiously as if it were of the 
finest linen, and cocks the white hat of 
the summer-before-last as knowingly , 
over his right eye, as if it were a pur- 
chase of yesterday. Look at the dirty 
white Berlin gloves, and the cheap 
silk-handkerchief stuck in the bosom 
of his threadbare coat. Is it possible 
to see him for an instant, and not come 
to the conclusion that he is the walking 
5 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



gentleman who wears a blue surtout, 
clean collar, and white trousers, for 
half an hour, and then shrinks into his 
worn-out scanty clothes : who has to 
boast night after night of his splendid 
fortune, with the painful consciousness 
of a pound a-week and his boots to 
find ; to talk of his father's mansion 
in the country, with a dreary recol- 
lection of his own two-pair back, in 
the N^w Cut ; and to be envied and 
flattered as the favoured lover of 
a rich heiress, remembering all the 
while that the ex-dancer at home is 
in the family way, and out of an 
engagement ? 

Next to him, perhaps, you will see a 
thin pale man, with a very long face, 
in a suit of shining black, thoughtfully 
knocking that part of his boot which 
once had a heel, with an ash stick. He 
is the man who does the heavy busi- 
ness, such as prosy fathers, virtuous 
servants, curates, landlords, and so 
forth. 

By the way, talking of fathers, we 
should very much like to see some 
piece in which all the dramatis per- 
sonse were orphans. Fathers are inva- 
riably great nuisances on the stage, 
and always have to give the hero or 
heroine a long explanation of what was 
done before the curtain rose, usually 
commencing with " It is now nineteen 
years, my dear child, since your blessed 
mother (here the old villain's voice 
falters) confided you to my charge. 
You were then an infant," &c. &c. 
Or else they have to discover, all of a 
sudden, that somebody whom they 
have been in constant communication 
with, during three long acts, without 
the slightest suspicion, is their own 
child : in which case they exclaim, 
" Ah ! what do I see 1 This bracelet ! 
That smile ! These documents ! Those 
eyes ! Can I believe my senses ? — It 
must be ! —Yes — it is, it is my child ! " 
— "My father !" exclaims the child ; 
and they fall into each other's arms, 
and look over each other's shoulders. 



and the audience give tliree rounds of 
applause. 

To return from this digression, we 
were about to say, that these are the 
sort of people whom you see talking, 
and attitudinising, outside the stage- 
doors of our minor theatres. At Astley's 
they are always more numerous than 
at any other place. There is generally 
a groom or two, sitting on the window- 
sill, and two or three dirty shabby- 
genteel men in checked neckerchiefs, 
and sallow linen, lounging about, and 
carrying, perhaps, under one arm, a 
pair of stage shoes badly wrapped up 
in a piece of old newspaper. Some 
years ago we used to stand looking, 
open-mouthed, at these men, with a 
feeling of mysterious curiosity, the 
very recollection of which provokes a 
smile at the moment we are writing. 
We could not believe, that the beings 
of light and elegance, in milk-white 
tunics, salmon-coloured legs, and blue 
scarfs, who flitted on sleek cream- 
coloured horses before our eyes at 
night, with all the aid of lights, music, 
and artificial flowers, could be the 
pale, dissipated-looking creatures we 
beheld by day. 

We can hardly believe it now. Of 
the lower class of actors we have seen 
something, and it requires no great 
exercise of imagination to identify the 
walking gentleman with the " dirty 
swell," the comic singer with the 
public-house chairman, or the leading 
tragedian with drunkenness and disr 
tress ; but these other men are myste- 
rious beings, never seen out of the 
ring, never beheld but in the costume 
of gods and sylphs. With the excep- 
tion of Ducrow, who can scarcely be 
classed among them, who ever knew a 
rider at Astley's, or saw him but on 
horseback ? Can our friend in the mi- 
litary uniform, ever appear in thread- 
bare attire, or descend to the compara- 
tively un- wadded costume of every-day 
life % Impossible ! We cannot — we 
will not — believe it. 



GREENWICH FAIR. 



C7 



CHAPTER XII. 



GREENWICH FAIR. 



If the Paris be * the lungs of Lon- 1 
don," we wonder what Greenwich Fair 
is — a periodical breaking out, we sup- 
pose, a sort of spring-rash : a three 
days' fever, which cools the blood for 
six months afterwards, and at the 
expiration of which London is restored 
to its old habits of plodding industry, 
as suddenly and completely as if no- 
thing had ever happened to disturb 
them. 

In our earlier days, we were a con- 
stant frequenter of Greenwich Fair, for 
years. We have proceeded to, and 
returned from it, in almost every de- 
scription of vehicle. We cannot con- 
scientiously deny the charge of having 
once made the passage in a spring- van, 
accompanied by thirteen gentlemen, 
fourteen ladies, an unlimited number 
of children, and a barrel of beer ; and 
we have a vague recollection of having, 
in later days, found ourself the eighth 
outside, on the top of a hackney-coach, 
at something past four o'clock in the 
morning, with a rather confused idea 
of our own name, or place of residence. 
We have grown older since then, and 
quiet, and steady : liking nothing bet- 
ter than to spend our Easter, and all 
our other holidays, in some quiet nook, 
with people of whom we shall never 
tire ; but we think we still remember 
something of Greenwich Fail', and of 
those who resort to it. At all events 
we will try. 

The road to Greenwich during the 
whole of Easter Monday, is in a state 
of perpetual bustle and noise. Cabs, 
hackney-coaches, "shay" carts, coal- 
waggons, stages, omnibuses, sociables, 
gigs, donkey-chaises — all crammed 
with people (for the question never is, 
what the horse can draw, but what the 
vehicle will hold), roll along at their 
utmost speed ; the dust flies in clouds, 
ginger-beer corks go off in volleys, 
the balcony of every public-house is 



crowded with people, smoking and 
drinking, half the private houses are 
turned into tea-shops, fiddles are in 
great request, every little fruit-shop 
displays its stall of gilt gingerbread 
and penny toys ; turnpike men are in 
despair ; horses won't go on, and , 
wheels will come off ; ladies in " cara- 
wans " scream with fright at every 
fresh concussion, and their admirers 
find it necessary to sit remarkably 
close to them, by way of encourage- 
ment ; servants of all-work, who are 
not allowed to have followers, and have 
got a holiday for the day, make the 
most of their time with the faithful 
admirer who waits for a stolen inter- 
view at the corner of the street every 
night, when they go to fetch the beer 
— apprentices grow sentimental, and 
straw-bonnet makers kind. Everybody 
is anxious to get on, and actuated by 
the common wish to be at the fair, or 
in the park, as soon as possible. 

Pedestrians linger in groups at the 
roadside, unable to resist the allure- 
ments of the stout proprietress of the 
" Jack-in-the-box, three shies a penny," 
or the more splendid offers of the man 
with three thimbles and a pea on a 
little round board, who astonishes the 
bewildered crowd with some such ad- 
dress as, " Here 's the sort o' game to 
make you laugh seven years arter 
you're dead, and turn evry air on 
your ed gray vith delight ! Three 
thimbles and vun little pea — with a 
vun, two, three, and a two, three, vun: 
catch him who can, look on, keep your 
eyes open, and niver say die ! niver 
mind the change, and the expense: all 
fair and above board : them as don't 
play can't vin, and luck attend the 
ryal sportsman! Bet any gen'lm'n 
any sum of money, from harf-a-crown 
up to a suverin, as he doesn't name 
the thimble as kivers the pea !_ " Here 
some greenhorn whispers his friend 
1? 2 



68 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



that he distinctly saw the pea roll 
under the middle thimble — an impres- 
sion which is immediately confirmed 
by a gentleman in top-boots, who is 
standing by, and who, in a low tone, 
regrets his own inability to bet in con- 
sequence of having unfortunately left 
his purse at home, but strongly urges 
the stranger not to neglect such a 
golden opportunity. The " plant" is 
successful, the bet is made, the stranger 
of course loses : and the gentleman 
with the thimbles consoles him, as he 
pockets the money, with an assurance 
that it 's a all the fortin of war ! this 
time I vin, next time you vin : niver 
mind the loss of two bob and a bender! 
Do it up in a small parcel, and break 
out in a fresh place. Here 's the sort 
o' game," &c. — and the eloquent 
harangue, with such variations as the 
speaker's exuberant fancy suggests, is 
again repeated to the gaping crowd, 
reinforced by the accession of several 
new comers. 

The chief place of resort in the day- 
time, after the public-houses, is the 
park, in which the principal amuse- 
ment is to drag young ladies up the 
steep hill which leads to the observa- 
tory, and then drag them down again, 
at the very top of their speed, greatly 
to the derangement of their curls and 
bonnet-caps, and much to the edifica- 
tion of lookers-on from below. " Kiss 
in the Ring," and " Threading my 
Grandmother's Needle," too, are sports 
which receive their full share of pa- 
tronage. Love-sick swains, under the 
influence of gin-and-water, and the 
tender passion, become violently affec- 
tionate : and the fair objects of their 
regard enhance the value of stolen 
kisses, by a vast deal of struggling, 
and holding down of heads, and cries 
of " Oh ! Ha' done, then, George — Oh, 
do tickle him for me, Mary — Well, I 
never !" and similar Lucretian ejacu- 
lations. Little old men and women, 
with a small basket under one arm, 
and a wine-glass, without a foot, in 
the other hand, tender " a drop o' the 
right sort" to the different groups ; 
and young ladies, who are persuaded 
to indulge in a drop of the aforesaid 



right sort, display a pleasing degree of 
reluctance to taste it, and cough after- 
wards with great propriety. 

The old pensioners, who, for the 
moderate charge of a penny, exhibit 
the mast-house, the Thames and ship- 
ping, the place where the men used to 
hang in chains, and other interesting 
sights, through a telescope, are asked 
questions about objects within the 
range of the glass, which it would 
puzzle a Solomon to answer ; and re- 
quested to find out particular houses 
in particular streets, which it would 
have been a task of some difficulty for 
Mr. Horner (not the young gentleman 
who ate mince-pies with his thumb, but 
the man of Colosseum notoriety) to 
discover. Here and there, where some 
three or four couple are sitting on the 
grass together, you will see a sun-burnt 
woman in a red cloak "telling for- 
tunes" and prophesying husbands, 
which it requires no extraordinary 
observation to describe, for the origi- 
nals are before her. Thereupon, the 
lady concerned laughs and blushes, 
and ultimately buries her face in an 
imitation cambric handkerchief, and 
the gentleman described looks ex- 
tremely foolish, and squeezes her hand, 
and fees the gipsy liberalky ; and the 
gipsy goes away, perfectly satisfied 
herself, and leaving those behind her 
perfectly satisfied also : and the pro- 
phecy, like many other prophecies of 
greater importance, fulfils itself in 
time. 

But it grows dark : the crowd has 
gradually dispersed, and only a few 
stragglers are left behind. The light 
in the direction of the church shows 
that the fair is illuminated ; and the 
distant noise proves it to be filling fast. 
The spot, which half an hour ago was 
ringing with the shouts of boisterous 
mirth, is as calm and quiet as if nothing 
could ever disturb its serenity ; the 
fine old trees, the majestic building at 
their feet, with the noble river beyond, 
glistening in the moonlight, appear in 
all their beauty, and under their most 
favourable aspect ; the voices of the 
boys, singing their evening hymn, are 
borne gently on the air ; and the hum- 



GREENWICH FAIR. 



60 






blest mechanic who has been lingering 
on the grass so pleasant to the feet that 
beat the same dull round from week to 
week in the paved streets of London, 
feels proud to think as he surveys the 
scene before him, that he belongs to 
the country which has selected such a 
spot as a retreat for its oldest and best 
defenders in the decline of their lives. 

Five minutes' walking brings you to 
the fair ; a scene calculated to awaken 
very different feelings. The entrance 
is occupied on either side by the ven- 
dors of gingerbread and toys: the stalls 
are gaily lighted up, the most attrac- 
tive goods profusely disposed, and un- 
bonneted young ladies, in their zeal 
for the interest of their employers, 
seize you by the coat, and use all the 
blandishments of " Do, dear " — 
" There 's a love " — <e Don't be cross, 
now," &c, to induce you to purchase 
half a pound of the real spice nuts, of 
which the majority of the regular fair- 
goers carry a pound or two as a pre- 
sent supply, tied up in a cotton pocket- 
handkerchief. Occasionally you pass 
a deal table, on which are exposed 
pen'orths of pickled salmon (fennel 
included), in little white saucers : oys- 
ters, with shells as large as cheese- 
plates, and divers specimens of a spe- 
cies of snail (ivilks, we think they are 
called), floating in a somewhat bilious- 
looking green liquid. Cigars, too, are 
in great demand ; gentlemen must 
smoke, of course, and here they are, 
two a penny, in a regular authentic 
cigar-box, with a lighted tallow candle 
in the centre. 

Imagine yourself in an extremely 
dense crowd, which swings you to and 
fro, and in and out, and every way but 
the right one ; add to this the screams 
of women, the shouts of boys, the 
clanging of gongs, the firing of pistols, 
the ringing of bells, the bellowings of 
speaking-trumpets, the squeaking of 
penny dittos, the noise of a dozen 
bands, with three drums in each, all 
playing different tunes at the same 
time, the hallooing of showmen, and 
an occasional roar from the wild-beast 
shows ; and you are in the very centre 
and heart of the fair. 



This immense booth, with the large 
stage in front, so brightly illuminated 
with variegated lamps, and pots of 
burning fat, is " Richardson-'s," where 
you have a melo-drama (with three 
murders and a ghost), a pantomime, a 
comic song, an overture, and some 
incidental music, all done in five-and- 
twenty minutes. 

The company are now promenading 
outside in all the dignity of wigs, 
spangles, red-ochre, and whitening. 
See with what a ferocious air the gen- 
tleman who personates the Mexican, 
chief, paces up and down, and with 
what an eye of calm dignity the prin- 
cipal tragedian gazes on the crowd 
below, or converses confidentially with 
the harlequin ! The four clowns, who 
are engaged in a mock broadsword 
combat, may be all very well for the 
low-minded holiday-makers; but these 
are the people for the reflective por- 
tion of the community. They look so 
noble in those Roman dresses, with 
their yellow legs and arms, long black 
curly heads, bushy eyebrows, and scowl 
expressive of assassination, and ven- 
geance, and everything else that is 
grand and solemn. Then, the ladies — 
were there ever such innocent and 
awful-looking beings ; as they walk up 
and down the platforms in twos and 
threes, with their arms round each 
other's waists, or leaning for support 
on one of those majestic men ! Their 
spangled muslin dresses and blue satin 
shoes and sandals (a leetle the worse 
for wear) are the admiration of all 
beholders ; and the playful manner 
in which they check the advances of 
the clown, is perfectly enchanting. 

" Just a-going to begin ! Pray come 
for'erd, come for'erd," exclaims the 
man in the countryman's dress, for the 
seventieth time: and people force their 
way up the steps in crowds. The band 
suddenly strikes up, the harlequin and 
columbine set the example, reels are 
formed in less than no time, the Roman 
heroes place their arms a-kimbo, and 
dance with considerable agility ; and 
the leading tragic actress, and the gen- 
tleman who enacts the "swell" in the 
pantomime, foot it to perfection. " All 



70 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



in to begin," shouts the manager, when 
no more people can be induced to 
"come for'erd," and away rush the 
leading members of the company to 
do the di'eadful in the first piece. 

A change of performance takes place 
every day during the fair, but the 
story of the tragedy is always pretty 
much the same. There is a rightful 
heir, who loves a young lady, and is 
beloved by her ; and a wrongful heir, 
who loves her too, and isn't beloved 
by her ; and the wrongful heir gets 
hold of the rightful heir, and throws 
him into a dungeon, just to kill him 
off when convenient, for which pur- 
pose he hires a couple of assassins — a 
good one and a bad one — who, the 
moment they are left alone, get up a 
little murder on their own account, 
the good one killing the bad one, and 
the bad one wounding the good one. 
Then the rightful heir is discovered in 
prison, carefully holding a long chain 
in his hands, and seated despondingly 
in a large arm-chair ; and the young 
lady comes in to two bars of soft 
music, and embraces the rightful heir ; 
and then the wrongful heir comes in 
to two bars of quick music, (techni- 
cally called "a hurry") and goes on 
in the most shocking manner, throwing 
the young lady about, as if she was 
nobody, and calling the rightful heir 
" Ar-recreant — ar- wretch ! " in a very 
loud voice, which answers the double 
purpose of displaying his passion, and 
preventing the sound being deadened 
by the sawdust. The interest becomes 
intense ; the wrongful heir draws his 
sword, and rushes on the rightful heir ; 
a blue smoke is seen, a gong is heard, 
and a tall white figure (who has been 
all this time, behind the arm-chair, 
covered over with a table-cloth), 
slowly rises to the tune of " Oft in the 
stilly night." This is no other than 
the ghost of the rightful heir's father, 
who was killed by the wrongful heir's 
father, at sight of which the wrongful 
heirbecomes apoplectic, and is literally 
" struck all of a heap," the stage not 
being large enough to admit of his 
falling down at full length. Then the 
good assassin staggers in, and says lie 



was hired in conjunction with the bad 
assassin, by the wrongful heir, to kill 
the rightful heir ; and he 's killed „a 
good many people in his time, but he 's 
very sorry for it, and won't do so any 
more — a promise which he imme- 
diately redeems, by dying off hand, 
without any nonsense about it. Then 
the rightful heir throws down his 
chain ; and then two men, a sailor, and 
a young woman (the tenantry of the 
rightful heir) come in, and the ghost 
makes dumb motions to them, which 
they, by supernatural interference, 
understand — for no one else can ; and 
the ghost (who can't do any thing with- 
out blue fire) blesses the rightful heir 
and the young lady, by half suffocating 
them with smoke : and then a muffin- 
bell rings, and the curtain drops. 

The exhibitions next in popularity 
to these itinerant theatres are the 
travelling menageries, or, to speak 
more intelligibly, the " Wild-beast 
shows," where a military band in 
beef-eater's costume, with leopard-skin 
caps, play incessantly ; and where 
large highly-coloured representations 
of tigers tearing men's heads open, 
and a lion being burnt with red-hot 
irons to induce him to drop his victim, 
are hung up outside, by way of attract- 
ing visitors. 

The principal officer at these places 
is generally a very tall, hoarse man, in 
a scarlet coat, with a cane in his hand, 
with which he occasionally raps the 
pictures we have just noticed, by way 
of illustrating his description — some- 
thing in this way. " Here, here, here ; 
the lion, the lion (tap), exactly as he is 
represented on the canvas outside 
(three taps) : no waiting, remember ; 
no deception. The fe-ro-cious lion (tap, 
tap) who bit off the gentleman's head 
last Cambervel vos a twelvemonth, 
and has killed on the awerage three 
keepers a-year ever since he arrived 
at matoority. No extra charge on 
this account recollect ; the price of 
admission is only sixpence." This 
address never fails to produce a consi- 
derable sensation, and sixpences flow 
into the treasury with wonderful ' 
rapidity. 






GREENWICH FAIR. 



71 



The dwarfs are also objects of great 
curiosity, and as a dwarf, a giantess, a 
living skeleton, a wild Indian, " a 
young lady of singular beauty, with 
perfectly white hair and pink eyes," 
and two or three other natural curiosi- 
ties, are usually exhibited together for 
the small charge of a penny, they 
attract very numerous audiences. The 
best thing about a dwarf is, that he 
has always a little box, about two feet 
six inches high, into which, by long 
practice, he can just manage to get, by 
doubling himself up like a boot-jack ; 
this box is painted outside like a six- 
roomed house, and as the crowd see 
him ring a bell, or fire a pistol out of 
the first-floor window, they verily 
believe that it is his ordinary town 
residence, divided like other mansions 
into drawing-rooms, dining-parlour, 
and bedchambers. Shut up in this 
case, the unfortunate little object is 
brought out to delight the throng by 
holding a facetious dialogue with the 
proprietor : in the course of which, 
the dwarf (who is always particularly 
drunk) pledges himself to sing a comic 
song inside, and pays various compli- 
ments to the ladies, which induce 
them to " come for'erd " with great 
alacrity. As a giant is not so easily 
moved, a pair of indescribables of 
most capacious dimensions, and a huge 
shoe, are usually brought out, into 
which two or three stout men get all 
at once, to the enthusiastic delight of 
the crowd, who are quite satisfied with 
the solemn assurance that these habili- 
ments form part of the giant's every- 
day costume. 

The grandest and most numerously- 
frequented booth in the whole fair, 
however, is " The Crown and Anchor" 
— a temporary ball-room — we forget 
how many hundred feet long, the price 
of admission to which is one shilling. 
Immediately on your right hand as 
you enter, after paying your money, is 
a refreshment place, at which cold 
beef, roast and boiled, French rolls, 



stout, wine, tongue, ham, even fowls, 
if we recollect right, are displayed in 
tempting array. There is a raised 
orchestra, and the place is boarded all 
the way down, in patches, just wide 
enough for a country dance. 

There is no master of the ceremo- 
nies in this artificial Eden — all is 
primitive, unreserved, and unstudied. 
The dust is blinding, the heat insup- 
portable, the company somewhat noisy, 
and in the highest spirits possible : the 
ladies, in the height of their innocent 
animation, dancing in the gentlemen's, 
hats, and the gentlemen promenading 
"the gay and festive scene" in the 
ladies' bonnets, or with the more 
expensive ornaments of false nOses, 
and low-crowned, tinder-box looking 
hats : playing children's drums, and 
accompanied by ladies on the penny 
trumpet. 

The noise of these various instru- 
ments, the orchestra, the shouting, the 
" scratchers," and the dancing, is 
perfectly bewildering. The dancing, 
itself, beggars description — every 
figure lasts about an hour, and the 
ladies bounce up and down the middle, 
with a degree of spirit which is quite 
indescribable. As t"> the gentlemen, 
they stamp their feet against the 
ground, every time " hands four 
round" begins, go down the middle 
and up again, with cigars in their 
mouths, and silk handkerchiefs in then' 
hands, and whirl their partners round, 
nothing loth, scrambling and falling, 
and embracing, and knocking up 
against the other couples, until they 
are fairly tired out, and can move no 
longer. The same scene is repeated 
again and again (slightly varied by an 
occasional " row ") until a late hour at 
night: and a great many clerks and 
'prentices find themselves next morn- 
ing with aching heads, empty pockets, 
damaged hats, and a very imperfect 
recollection of how it was, they did not 
get home. 



72 



SKETCHES BY BQZ. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



PRIVATE THEATRES. 



"Richard the Third. — Duke of 
Glo'ster, 21. ; Earl of Richmond, 1Z.; 
Duke of Bucking-ham, 15s.; Catesby, 
12s. ; Tressell, 10s. 6d. ; Lord Stan- 
ley, 5s. ; Lord Mayor of London, 
2s. 6dr 

Such are the written placards 
wafered up in the gentlemen's dressing- 
room, or the green-room (where there 
is any), at a private theatre; and such 
are the sums extracted from the shop 
till, or overcharged in the office ex- 
penditure, by the donkeys who are 
prevailed upon to pay for permission 
to exhibit their lamentable ignorance 
and boobyism on the stage of a private 
theatre. This they do, in proportion 
to the scope afforded by the character 
for the display of their imbecility. 
For instance, the Duke of Glo'ster is 
well worth two pounds, because he 
has it all to himself ; he must wear a 
real sword, and what is better still, he 
must draw it, several times in the 
course of the piece. The soliloquies 
alone are well worth fifteen shillings ; 
then there is the stabbing King Henry 
— decidedly cheap at three-and-six- 
pence, that 's eighteen-and-sixpence ; 
bullying the coffin-bearers — say eigh- 
-teen-pence, though it's worth much 
more — that 's a pound. Then the love 
scene with Lady Ann, and the bustle 
of the fourth act, can't be dear at ten 
shillings more — that 's only one pound 
ten, including the " off with his head!" 
—which is sure to bring down the 
applause, and it is very easy to do — 
" Orf with his ed " (very quick and 
loud ; — then slow and sneeringly) — 
" So much for Bu-u-u-uckingham ! " 
Lay the emphasis on the " uck ;" get 
yourself gradually into a corner, and 
work with your right hand, while you 're 
saying it, as if you were feeling your 
way, and it's sure to do. The tent 
scene is confessedly worth half-a- 
sovereign, and so you have the fight 
in, gratis, and every body knows what 



an effect may be produced by a good 
combat. One — two — three — four — 
over ; then, one — two — three — four — 
under ; then thrust ; then dodge and . 
slide about ; then fall down on one 
knee ; then fight upon it, and then get 
up again and stagger. You may keep 
on doing this, as long as it seems to 
take — say ten minutes — and then fall 
down (backwards, if you can manage 
it without hurting yourself), and die 
game: nothing like it for producing an 
effect. They always do it at Astley's 
and Sadler's Wells, and if they don't 
know how to do this sort of thing, who 
in the world does ? A small child, or 
a female in white, increases the interest 
of a combat materially — indeed, we 
are not aware that a regular legitimate 
terrific broadsword combat could be 
done without; but it would be rather 
difficult, and somewhat unusual, to 
introduce this effect in the last scene 
of Richard the Third, so the only thing 
to be done, is, just to make the best 
of a bad bargain, and be as long as 
possible fighting it out. 

The principal patrons of private 
theatres are dirty boys, low copying- 
clerks in attorneys' offices, capacious- 
headed youths from city counting- 
houses, Jews whose business, as lenders 
of fancy dresses, is a sure passport to 
the amateur stage, shop-boys who now 
and then mistake their master's money 
for their own; and a choice miscellany 
of idle vagabonds. The proprietor of 
a private theatre may be an ex-scene- 
painter, a low coffee-house-keeper, a 
disappointed eighth-rate actor, a retired 
smuggler, or an uncertificated bank- 
rupt. The theatre itself may be in 
Catherine- street, Strand, the purlieus 
of the city, the neighbourhood of 
Gray's-inn-lane, or the vicinity of 
Sadler's Wells ; or it may, perhaps, 
form the chief nuisance of some shabby 
street, on the Surrey side of Waterloo 
bridge. 



PRIVATE THEATRES. 



The lady performers pay nothing 
for their characters, and it is needless 
to add, are usually selected from one 
class of society ; the audiences are 
necessarily of much the same character 
as the performers, who receive, in 
return for their contributions to the 
management, tickets to the amount of 
the money they pay. 

All the minor theatres in London, 
especially the lowest, constitute the 
centre of a little stage-struck neigh- 
bourhood. Each of them has an 
audience exclusively its own ; and at 
any you will see dropping into the pit 
at half-price, or swaggering into the 
back of a box, if the price of admission 
be a reduced one, divers boys of from 
fifteen to twenty- one years of age, who 
throw back their coat and turn up 
their wristbands, after the portraits of 
Count D'Orsay,hum tunes and whistle 
when the curtain is down, by way of 
persuading the people near them, that 
they are not at all anxious to have it 
up again, and sp&k familiarly of the 
inferior performers as Bill Such-a-one, 
and Ned So-and-so, or tell each other 
how a new piece called TJie Unlcnoiun 
Bandit of the Invisible Cavern, is in 
rehearsal ; how Mister Palmer is to 
play The Unknown Bandit ; how 
Charley Scarton is to take the part of 
an English sailor, and fight a broad- 
sword combat with six unknown 
bandits, at one and the same time (one 
theatrical sailor is always equal to half 
a dozen men at least) ; how Mister 
Palmer and Charley Scarton are to go 
through a double hornpipe in fetters 
in the second act ; how the interior of 
the invisible cavern is to occupy the 
whole extent of the stage ; and other 
town-surprising theatrical announce- 
ments. These gentlemen are the 
amateurs — the Richards, Shylocks, 
Beverleys, and Othellos — the Young 
Bomtons, Rovers, Captain Absolutes, 
and Charles Surfaces — of a private 
theatre. 

See them at the neighbouring public- 
house or the theatrical coffee-shop ! 
They are the kings of the place, sup- 
posing no real performers to be 
present ; and roll about, hats on one 



side, and arms a-kimbo, as if they 
had actually come into possession of 
eighteen shillings a- week, and a share 
of a ticket night. If one of them does 
but know an Astley's supernumerary 
he is a happy fellow. The mingled air 
of envy and admiration with which 
his companions will regard him, as he 
converses familiarly with some mouldy- 
looking man in a fancy neckerchief, 
whose partially corked eyebrows, and 
half -rouged face, testify to the fact of 
his having just left the stage or the 
circle, sufficiently shows in what high 
admiration these public characters are 
held. 

With the double view of guarding 
against the discovery of friends or 
employers, and enhancing the interest 
of an assumed character, by attaching 
a high-sounding name to its repre- 
sentative, these geniuses assume ficti- 
tious names, which are not the least 
amusing part of the play-bill of a 
private theatre. Belville, Melville, 
Treville, Berkeley, Randolph, Byron, 
St. Clair, and so forth, are among the 
humblest ; and the less imposing titles 
of Jenkins, Walker, Thomson, Barker, 
Solomons, &c, are completely laid 
aside. There is something imposing 
in this, and it is an excellent apology 
for shabbiness into the bargain. A 
shrunken, faded coat, a decayed hat, 
a patched and soiled pair of trousers — 
nay even a very dirty shirt (and none 
of these appearances are very un- 
common among the members of the 
corps dramatiaue), may be worn for 
the purpose of disguise, and to prevent 
the remotest chance of recognition. 
Then it prevents any troublesome 
inquiries or explanations about em- 
ployment and pursuits ; every body is 
a gentleman at large, for the occasion, 
and there are none of those unpleasant 
and unnecessary distinctions to which 
even genius must occasionally succumb 
elsewhere. As to the ladies (God 
bless them), they are quite above any 
formal absurdities ; the mere circum- 
stance of your being behind the scenes 
is a sufficient introduction to their 
society — for of course they know that 
none but strictly respectable persons 



n 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



would be admitted into that close 
fellowship with them, which acting 
engenders. They place implicit re- 
liance on the manager, no doubt ; and 
as to the manager, he is all affability 
when he knows you well, — or, in other 
words, when he has pocketed your 
money once, and entertains confident 
hopes of doing so again. 

A quarter before eight — there will 
be a full house to-night — six parties 
in the boxes, already ; four little boys 
and a woman in the pit ; and two 
fiddles and a flute in the orchestra, 
who have got through five overtures 
since seven o'clock (the hour fixed for 
the commencement of the perform- 
ances), and have just begun the sixth. 
There will be plenty of it, though, 
when it does begin, for there is enough 
in the bill to last six hours at least. 

That gentleman in the white hat 
and checked shirt, brown coat and 
brass buttons, lounging behind the 
stage-box on the 0. P. side, is Mr. Ho- 
ratio St. Julien, alias Jem Larkins. 
His line is genteel comedy — his father's, 
coal and potato. He does Alfred 
Highflier in the last piece, and very 
well he'll do it — at the price. The 
party of gentlemen in the opposite 
box, to whom he has just nodded, are 
friends and supporters of Mr. Beverley 
(otherwise Loggins), the Macbeth of 
the night. You observe their attempts 
to appear easy and gentlemanly, each 
member of the party, with his feet 
cocked upon the cushion in front 
of the box ! They let them do these 
things here, upon the same humane 
principle which permits poor people's 
children to knock double knocks at 
the door of an empty house — because 
they can't do it any where else. The 
two stout men in the centre box, with 
an opera-glass ostentatiously placed 
before them, are friends of the pro- 
prietor — opulent country managers, 
as he confidentially informs every 
individual among the crew behind the 
curtain — opulent country managers 
looking out for recruits ; a representa- 
tion which Mi\ Nathan, the dresser, 
who is in the manager's interest, and 
has just arrived with the costumes, 



offers to confirm upon oath if required 
— corroborative evidence, however, is 
quite unnecessary, for the gulls believe 
it at once. 

The stout Jewess, who has just 
entered, is the mother of the pale bony 
little girl, with the necklace of blue 
glass beads, sitting by her ; she is 
being brought up to " the profession." 
Pantomime is to be her line, and she 
is coming out to-night, in a hornpipe 
after the tragedy. The short thin man 
beside Mr. St. Julien, whose white 
face is so deeply seared with the small- 
pox, and whose dirty shirt-front is 
inlaid with open-work, and embossed 
with coral studs like ladybirds, is the 
low comedian and comic singer of the 
establishment. The remainder of the 
audience — a tolerably numerous one 
by this time — are a motley group of 
dupes and blackguards. 

The foot-lights have just made their 
appearance : the wicks of the six little 
oil lamps round the only tier of boxes, 
are being turned up, and the additional 
light thus afforded serves to show the 
presence of dirt, and absence of paint, 
which forms a prominent feature in 
the audience part of the house. As 
these preparations, however, announce 
the speedy commencement of the play, 
let us take a peep " behind," previous 
to the ringing-up. 

The little narrow passages beneath 
the stage are neither especially clean 
nor too brilliantly lighted ; and the 
absence of any flooring, together with 
the damp mildewy smell which per- 
vades the place, does not conduce in 
any great degree to their comfortable 
appearance. Don't fall over this plate- 
basket — it's one of the "properties" 
— the caldron for the witches' cave ; 
and the three uncouth-looking figures, 
with broken clothes-props in their 
hands, who are drinking gin-and- 
water out of a pint pot, are the weird 
sisters. This miserable room, lighted 
by candles in sconces placed at length- 
ened intervals round the wall, is the 
dressing-room, common to the gentle- 
men performers, and the square hole 
in the ceiling is the trap- door of the 
stasje above. You will observe that 



PRIVATE THEATRES. 



75 



the ceiling is ornamented with the 
beams that support the boards, and 
tastefully hung with cobwebs. 

The characters in the tragedy are 
all dressed, and their own clothes are 
scattered in hurried confusion over 
the wooden dresser which surrounds 
the room. That snuff-shop-looking 
figure, in front of the glass, is Banquo : 
and the young lady with the liberal 
display of legs, who is kindly painting 
his face with a hare's foot, is dressed 
for Fleance. The large woman, who 
is consulting the stage directions in 
Cumberland's edition of Macbeth, is 
the Lady Macbeth of the night ; she 
is always selected to play the part, 
because she is tall and stout, and holes 
a little like Mrs. Siddons — at a consi- 
derable distance. That stupid-looking 
milksop, with light hair and bow legs 
— a kind of man whom you can war- 
rant town-made — is fresh caught ; he 
plays Malcolm to-night, just to accus- 
tom himself to an audience. He will 
get on better by degrees ; he will play 
Othello in a month, and in a month 
more, will very probably be appre- 
hended on a charge of embezzlement. 
The black-eyed female with whom he 
is talking so earnestly, is dressed for 
the " gentlewoman." It is her first 
appearance, too — in that character. 
The boy of fourteen, who is having his 
eyebrows smeared with soap and 
whitening, is Duncan, King of Scot- 
land ; and the two dirty men with the 
corked countenances, in very old green 
tunics, and dirty drab boots, are the 
"army." 

"Look sharp below there, gents," 
exclaims the dresser, a red-headed 
and red- whiskered Jew, calling through 
the trap, " they 're a-going to ring up. 
The flute says he'll be blowed if he 
plays any more, and they 're getting 



precious noisy in front." A general 
rush immediately takes place to the 
half-dozen little steep steps leading to 
the stage, and the heterogeneous group 
are soon assembled at the side scenes, 
in breathless anxiety and motley con- 
fusion. 

" Now," cries the manager, con- 
sulting the written list which hangs 
behind the first P. S. wing, " Scene 1, 
open country — lamps down — thunder 
and lightning — all ready, White ?" 
[This is addressed to one of the army.] 
" All ready." — " Very well. Scene %, 
front chamber. Is the front chamber 
down V — " Yes." — " Very well."— 
u Jones " [to the other army who is 
up in the flies]. « Hallo !"— « Wind 
up the open country when we ring up." 
— " I '11 take care." — " Scene 3, back 
perspective with practical bridge. 
Bridge ready, White ? Got the tres- 
sels there ?"— « All right." 

" Very well. Clear the stage," 
cries the manager, hastily packing 
every member of the company into 
the little space there is between the 
wings and the wall, and one wing and 
another. " Places, places. Now then, 
Witches — Duncan — Malcolm — bleed- 
ing officer — where 's the bleeding- 
officer ?" — " Here ! " replies the 
officer, who has been rose-pinking 
for the character. u Get ready, then ; 
now, White, ring the second music- 
bell." The actors who are to be dis- 
covered, are hastily arranged, and the 
actors who are not to be discovered 
place themselves, in their anxiety to 
peep at the house, just where the 
whole audience can see them. The 
bell rings, and the orchestra, hi acknow- 
ledgment of the call, play three dis- 
tinct chords. The bell rings — the 
tragedy (!) opens — and our descrip- 
tion closes. 



76 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



CHAPTER XIV, 



VAUXHALL-GARDENS BY DAY. 




There was a time when if a man ven- 
tured to wonder how Vauxhall-gardens 
would look by day, he was hailed with 
a shout of derision at the absurdity of 
the idea. Vauxhall by daylight ! A 
porter-pot without porter, the House 
of Commons without the Speaker, a 
gas-lamp without the gas — pooh, non- 
sense, the thing was not to be thought 
of. It was rumoured, too, in those 
times, that Vauxhall-gardens by day, 
were the scene of secret and hidden 
experiments ; that there, carvers were 
exercised in the mystic art of cutting 
a moderate-sized ham into slices thin 
enough to pave the whole of the 
grounds ; that beneath the shade of 
the tall trees, studious men were con- 
stantly engaged in chemical experi- 
ments, with the view of discovering 
how much water a bowl of negus could 
possibly bear ; and that in some re- 
tired nooks, appropriated to the study 
of ornithology, other sage and learned 
men were, by a process known only to 
themselves, incessantly employed in 
reducing fowls to a mere combination 
of skin and bone. 

Vague rumours of this kind, toge- 
ther with many others of a similar 
nature, cast over Vauxhall-gardens an 
air of deep mystery ; and as there is 
a great deal in the mysterious, there 
is no doubt that to a good many people, 
at all events, the pleasure they afforded 
was not a little enhanced by this very 
circumstance. 

Of this class of people we confess 
to having made one. We loved to 
wander among these illuminated 
groves, thinking of the patient and 
laborious researches which had been 
carried on there during the day, and 
witnessing their results in the suppers 
which were served up beneath the light 
of lamps and to the sound of music, 
at night. The temples and saloons 
and cosmoramas and fountains glit- 
tered and sparkled before our eyes ; 



the beauty of the lady singers and the 
elegant deportment of the gentlemen, 
captivated our hearts ; a few hundred 
thousand of additional lamps dazzled, 
our senses ; a bowl or two of reeking 
punch bewildered our brains ; and we 
were happy. 

In an evil hour, the proprietors of 
Vauxhall-gardens took to opening 
them by day. We regretted this, as 
rudely and harshly disturbing that 
veil of mystery which had hung about 
the property for many years, and 
which none but the noonday sun, and 
the late Mr. Simpson, had ever pene- 
trated. We shrunk from going ; at 
this moment we scarcely know why. 
Perhaps a morbid consciousness of 
approaching disappointment — perhaps 
a fatal presentiment — perhaps the 
weather ; whatever it was, we did 
not go until the second or third an- 
nouncement of a race between two 
balloons tempted us, and we went. 

We paid our shilling at the gate, 
and then we saw for the first time, 
that the entrance, if there had ever 
been any magic about it at all, was 
now decidedly disenchanted, being, in 
fact, nothing more nor less than a 
combination of very roughly-painted 
boards and sawdust. We glanced at 
the orchestra and supper-room as we 
hurried past — we just recognised them, 
and that was all. We bent our steps 
to the firework-ground ; there, at 
least, we should not be disappointed. 
We reached it, and stood rooted to 
the spot with mortification and asto- 
nishment. That the Moorish tower — 
that wooden shed with a door hi the 
centre, and daubs of crimson and 
yellow all round, like a gigantic watch- 
case ! That the place where night 
after night we had beheld the un- 
daunted Mr. Blackmore make his 
terrific ascent, surrounded by flames 
of fire, and peals of artillery, and where 
the white garments of Madame Some- 



VAUXHALL GARDENS BY DAY. 



body (we forget even her name now), 
who nobly devoted her life to the 
manufacture of fireworks, had so often 
been seen fluttering in the wind, as 
she called up a red, blue, or party- 
coloured light to illumine her temple ! 

Tfiai the but at this moment the 

bell rung ; the people scampered 
away, pell-mell, to the spot from 
whence the sound proceeded ; and 
we, from the mere force of habit, 
found ourself running among the first, 
as if for very life. 

It was for the concert in the orches- 
tra. A small party of dismal men in 
cocked hats were " executing " the 
overture to Tancredi, and a numerous 
assemblage of ladies and gentlemen, 
with their families, had rushed from 
their half-emptied stout mugs in the 
supper boxes, and crowded to the 
spot. Intense was the low murmur 
of admiration when a particularly 
small gentleman, in a dress coat, led 
on a particularly tall lady hi a blue 
sarcenet pelisse and bonnet of the 
same, ornamented with large white 
feathers, and forthwith commenced a 
plaintiA r e duet. 

We knew the small gentleman well ; 
we had seen a lithographed semblance 
of him, on many a piece of music, 
with his mouth wide open as if in the 
act of singing ; a wine-glass in his 
hand ; and a table with two decanters 
and four pine-apples on it in the back- 
ground. The tall lady, too, we had 
gazed on, lost in raptures of. admira- 
tion, many .and many a time — how 
different people do look by daylight, 
and without punch, to be sure ! It 
was a beautiful duet : first the small 
gentleman asked a question, and then 
the tall lady answered it ; then the 
small gentleman and the tall lady sang 
together most melodiously ; then the 
small gentleman went through a little 
piece of vehemence by himself, and 
got very tenor indeed, in the excite- 
ment of his feelings, to which the tall 
lady responded in a similar manner ; 
then the small gentleman had a shake 
or two, after which the tall lady had 
the same, and then they both merged 
imperceptibly into the original air : 



and the band wound themselves up to 
a pitch of fury, and the small gentle- 
man handed the tall lady out, and the 
applause was rapturous. 

The comic singer, however, was the 
especial favourite ; we really thought 
that a gentleman, with his dinner in 
a pocket-handkerchief, who stood near 
us, would have fainted with excess of 
joy. A marvellously facetious gentle- 
man that comic singer is ; his dis- 
tinguishing characteristics are, a wig- 
approaching to the flaxen, and an aged 
countenance, and he bears the name 
of one of the English counties, if we 
recollect right. He sang a very good 
song about the seven ages, the first 
half hour of which afforded the assem- 
bly the purest delight ; of the rest we 
can make no report, as we did not 
stay to hear any more. 

We walked about, and met with a 
disappointment at every turn ; our 
favourite views were mere patches of 
paint ; the fountain that had sparkled 
so showily by lamp-light, presented 
very much the appearance of a water- 
pipe that had burst ; all the orna- 
ments were dingy, and all the walks 
gloomy. There was a spectral attempt 
at rope-dancing in the little open 
theatre. The sun shone upon the 
spangled dresses of the performers, 
and their evolutions were about as 
inspiriting and appropriate as a 
country-dance in a family-vault. So 
we retraced our steps to the firework- 
ground, and mingled with the little 
crowd of people who were contem- 
plating Mr. Green. 

Some half-dozen men were restrain- 
ing the impetuosity of one of the 
balloons, which was completely filled, 
and had the car already attached ; 
and as rumours had gone abroad that 
a Lord was " going up," the crowd 
were more than usually anxious and 
talkative. There was one little man 
in faded black, with a dirty face and 
a rusty black neckerchief with a red 
border, tied in a narrow wisp round 
his neck, who entered into conversa- 
tion with every body, and had some- 
thing to say upon every remark that 
was made within his hearing. He 



?a 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



was standing with his arms folded, 
staring up at the balloon, and every 
now and then vented his feelings of 
reverence for the aeronaut, by saying, 
as he looked round to catch some- 
body's eye, " He 's a rum 'un is Green ; 
think o' this here being up'ards of his 
two hundredth ascent; ecod the man 
as is ekal to Green never had the 
toothache yet, nor won't have within 
this hundred year, and that 's all 
about it. When you meets with real 
talent, and native, too, encourage it, 
that 's what I say ; " and when he 
had delivered himself to this effect, 
he would fold his arms with more 
determination than ever, and stare at 
the balloon with a sort of admiring 
defiance of any other man alive, 
beyond himself and Green, that im- 
pressed the crowd with the opinion 
that he was an oracle. 

" Ah, you 're very right, sir," said 
another gentleman, with his wife, and 
children, and mother, and wife's 
sister, and a host of female friends, 
in all the gentility of white pocket- 
handkerchiefs, frills, and spencers, 
" Mr. Green is a steady hand, sir, 
and there 's no fear about him." 

" Fear ! " said the little man : 
" isn't it a lovely thing to see him and 
his wife a going up in one balloon, 
and his own son and his wife a jostling 
up against them in another, and all 
of them going twenty or thirty mile 
in three hours or so, and then coming 
back in pochayses ? I don't know 
where this here science is to stop, 
mind you ; that 's what bothers me." 

Here there Avas a considerable 
talking among the females in the 
spencers. 

« What's the ladies a laughing at, 
sir ? " inquired the little man, conde- 
scendingly. 

" It 's only my sister Mary," said 
one of the girls, " as says she hopes 
his lordship won't be frightened when 
he 's in the car, and want to come 
out again." 

** Make yourself easy about that 
there, my dear," replied the little 
man. "If he was so much as co 
move a inch without ieave, Green 



would jist fetch him a crack over the 
head with the telescope, as would 
send Inm into the bottom of the basket 
in no time, and stun him till they 
come down again." 

" Would he, though \ " inquired 
the other man. 

" Yes, would he," replied the little 
one, " and think nothing of it, neither, 
if he was the king himself. Green's 
presence of mind is wonderful." 

Just at this moment all eyes were 
directed to the preparations which 
were being made for starting. The 
car was attached to the second bal- 
loon, the two were brought pretty 
close together, and a military band 
commenced playing, with a zeal and 
fervour which would render the most 
timid man in existence but too happy 
to accept any means of quitting that 
particular spot of earth on which they 
were stationed. Then Mr. Green, 
sen., and his noble companion entered 
one car, and Mr. Green, jun,, and Ms 
companion the other ; and then the 
balloons went up, and the aerial 
travellers stood up, and the crowd 
outside roared with delight, and the 
two gentlemen who had never ascended 
before, tried to wave their flags, as 
if they were not nervous, but held on 
very fast all the while ; and the bal- 
loons were wafted gently away, our 
little friend solemnly protesting, long 
after they were reduced to mere 
specks in the air, that he could still 
distinguish the white hat of Mr. Green. 
The gardens disgorged their multi- 
tudes, boys ran up and down scream- 
ing " bal-loon ; " and in all the 
crowded thoroughfares people rushed 
out of their shops into the middle of 
the road, and having stared up in the 
air at two little black objects till they 
almost dislocated their necks, walked 
slowly in again, perfectly satisfied. 

The next day there was a grand 
account of the ascent in the morning 
papers, and the public were informed 
how it was the finest day but four in 
Mr. Green's remembrance ; how they 
retained sight of the earth till they 
lost it bc-iiind the c/ouds ; and how 
the reflection of the balloon on the 






EARLY COACHES. 



undulating masses of vapour was 
gorgeously picturesque ; together with 
a little science about the refraction 
of the sun's rays, and some mysterious 
hints respecting atmospheric heat and 
eddying currents of air. 

There was also an interesting ac- 
count how a man in a boat was dis- 
tinctly heard by Mr. Green, jun., to 
exclaim, " My eye ! " which Mr. 
Green, jun., attributed to his voice 
rising to the balloon, and the sound 



being thrown back from its surface 
into the car ; and the whole concluded 
with a slight allusion to another ascent 
next Wednesday, all of which was 
very instructive and very amusing, as 
our readers will see if they look to 
•the papers. If we have forgotten to 
mention the date, they have only to 
wait till next summer, and take the 
account of the first ascent, and it will 
answer the purpose equally well. 



CHAPTER XV 



EARLY COACHES. 



We have often wondered how many 
months' incessant travelling in a post- 
chaise, it would take to kill a man ; 
and wondering by analogy, we should 
very much like to know how many 
months of constant travelling in a 
succession of early coaches, an unfor- 
tunate mortal could endure. Breaking 
a man alive upon the wheel, would be 
nothing to breaking his rest, his peace, 
his heart — everything but his fast — 
upon four ; and the punishment of 
Ixion (the only practical person, by 
the by, who has discovered the secret 
of the perpetual motion) would sink 
into utter insignificance before the 
one we have suggested. If we had 
been a powerful churchman in those 
good times when blood was shed 
freely as water and men were 
mowed down like grass, in the sacred 
cause of religion, we would have lain 
by very quietly till we got hold of 
some especially obstinate miscreant, 
who positively refused to be converted, 
to our faith, and then we would have 
booked him for an inside place in a 
small coach, which travelled day and 
night : and securing the remainder of 
the places for stout men with a slight 
tendency to coughing and spitting, we 
would have started him forth on his 
last travels : leaving him mercilessly 
to all the tortures which the waiters, 



landlords, coachmen, guards, boots, 
chambermaids, and other familiars on 
his line of road, might think proper to 
inflict. 

Who has not experienced the mise- 
ries inevitably consequent upon a 
summons to undertake a hasty jour- 
ney % You receive an intimation from 
your place of business — wherever that 
may be, or whatever you may be — 
that it will be necessary to leave town 
without delay. You and your family 
are forthwith thrown into a state of 
tremendous excitement ; an express is 
immediately dispatched to the washer- 
woman's ; every body is in a bustle ; 
and you, yourself, with a feeling of 
dignity which you cannot altogether 
conceal, sally forth to the booking- 
office to secure your place. Here a 
painful consciousness of your own un- 
importance first rushes on your mind 
— the people are as cool and collected 
as if nobody were going out of town, 
or as if a journey of a hundred odd 
miles were a mere nothing. You 
enter a mouldy-looking room, orna- 
mented with large posting-bills ; the 
greater part of the place enclosed 
behind a huge lumbering rough coun- 
ter, and fitted up with recesses that 
look like the dens of the smaller 
animals in a travelling menagerie, 
without tne bars. Some half-dozen 






GO 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



people are " booking " brown-paper 
parcels, which one of the clerks 
flings into the aforesaid recesses with 
an air ot recklessness which you, re- 
membering the new carpet-bag you 
bought in the morning, feel consider- 
ably annoyed at ; porters looking like 
so many Atlases, keep rushing in 
and out, with large packages on their 
shoulders ; and while you are waiting 
to make the necessary inquiries, you 
wonder what on earth the booking- 
office clerks can have been before they 
were booking-office clerks ; one of 
them with his pen behind his ear, and 
his hands behind him, is standing in 
front of the fire, like a full-length 
portrait of Napoleon ; the other with 
his hat half off his head, enters the 
passengers' names in the books with a 
coolness which is inexpressibly pro- 
voking ; and the villain whistles — 
actually whistles — while a man asks 
him what the fare is outside, all the 
way to Holyhead ! — in frosty weather 
too ? They are clearly an isolated 
race, evidently possessing no sympa- 
thies or feelings in common with the 
rest of mankind. Your turn comes at 
last, and having paid the fare, you 
tremblingly inquire — " What time 
will it be necessary for me to be here 
in the morning % " — " Six o'clock,' 
replies the whistler, carelessly pitching 
the sovereign you have just parted 
with, into a wooden bowl on the desk. 
" Rather before than arter," adds the 
man with the semi-roasted unmen- 
tionables, with just as much ease and 
complacency as if the whole world 
got out of bed at five. You turn into 
the street, ruminating as you bend 
your steps homewards on the extent 
to which men become hardened in 
cruelty, by custom. 

If there be one thing in existence 
more miserable than another, it most 
unquestionably is the being compelled 
to rise by candle-light. If you ever 
doubted the fact, you are painfully 
convinced of your error, on the 
morning of your departure. You left 
strict orders, overnight, to be called 
at half-past four, and you have done 
nothing all night but doze for five 



i minutes at a time, and start up sud- 
denly from a terrific dream of a large 
church-clock with the small hand 
running round, with astonishing 
rapidity, to every figure on the dial- 
plate. At last, completely exhausted, 
you fall gradually into a refreshing 
j sleep — your thoughts grow confused 
i — the stage-coaches, which have been 
"going off" before your eyes all. 
| night, become less and less distinct, 
until they go off altogether ; one 
moment you are driving with all the 
skill and smartness of an experienced 
whip — the next you are exhibiting, 
a la Ducrow, on the off- leader ; anon 
you are closely muffled up, inside, and 
have just recognised in the person of 
the guard an old schoolfellow, whose 
funeral, even in your dream, you re- 
member to have attended eighteen 
years ago. At last you fall into a 
state of complete oblivion, from which 
you are aroused, as if into a new state 
of existence, by a singular illusion. 
You are apprenticed to a trunk-maker ; 
how, or why, or when, or wherefore, 
you don't take the trouble to inquire ; 
but there you are, pasting the lining 
in the lid of a portmanteau. Confound 
that other apprentice in the back 
shop, how he is hammering ! — rap, 
rap, rap — what an industrious fellow 
he must be ! you have heard him at 
work for half an hour past, and he has 
been hammering incessantly the whole 
time. Pvap, rap, rap, again — he 's 
talking now — what 's that he said ? 
Five o'clock ! You make a violent 
exertion, and start up in bed. The 
vision is at once dispelled ; the trunk- 
maker s shop is your own bed-room, 
and the other apprentice your shiver- 
ing servant, who has been vainly en- 
deavouring to wake you for the last 
quarter of an hour, at the imminent 
risk of breaking either his own knuckles, 
or the panels of the door. 

You proceed to dress yourself, with 
all possible despatch. The flaring fiat 
candle with the long snuff, gives light 
enough to show that the things you 
want, are not where they ought to be, 
and you undergo a trifling delay in 
consequence of having carefully 



EARLY COACHES. 



81 



packed up one of your boots in your 
over anxiety of the preceding night. 
You soon complete your toilet, how- 
ever, for you are not particular on 
such an occasion, and you shaved 
yesterday evening ; so mounting your 
Petersham great-coat, and green 
travelling-shawl, and grasping your 
carpet-bag in your right hand, you 
walk lightly down stairs, lest you 
should awaken any of the family, and 
after pausing in the common sitting- 
room for one moment, just to have a 
cup of coffee (the said common sitting- 
room looking remarkably comfortable, 
with every thing out of its place, and 
strewed with the crumbs of last 
night's supper), you undo the chain 
and bolts of the street-door, and find 
yourself fairly in the street. 

A thaw, by all that is miserable ! 
The frost is completely broken up. 
You look down the long perspective of 
Oxiord-street, the gas-lights mourn- 
fully reflected on the wet pavement, 
and can discern no speck in the road 
to encourage the belief that there is 
a cab or a coach to be had — the very 
coachmen have gone home in despair. 
The cold sleet is drizzling down with 
that gentle regularity, which betokens 
a duration of four-and-twenty hours at 
least; the damp hangs upon the house- 
tops, and lamp-posts, and clings to you 
like an invisible cloak. The water is 
"coming in" in every area, the pipes 
have burst, the water-butts are running 
over ; the kennels seem to be doing 
matches against time, pump-handles 
descend of their own accord, horses in 
market-carts fall down, and there 's no 
one to help them up again, policemen 
look as if they had been carefully 
sprinkled with powdered glass ; here 
and there a milk-woman trudges slowly 
along, with a bit of list round each foot 
to keep her from slipping ; boys who 
" don't sleep in the house," and are 
not allowed much sleep out of it, can't 
wake their masters by thundering at 
the shop-door, and cry with the cold — 
the compound of ice, snow, and water 
on the pavement, is a couple of inches 
thick— nobody ventures to walk fast to 
keep himself warm, and nobodv could 
No. 178. i 



succeed in keeping himself warm if he 
did. 

It strikes a quarter past five as you 
trudge down Waterloo-place 'on your 
way to the Golden-cross, and you dis- 
cover, for the first time, that you were 
called about an hour too early. You 
have not time to go back ; there is no 
place open to go into, and you have, 
therefore, no resource but to go for- 
ward, which you do, feeling remark- 
ably satisfied with yourself, and every- 
thing about you. You arrive at the 
office, and look wistfully up the yard 
for the Birmingham High-flier, which,, 
for aught you can see, may have flown 
away altogether, for no preparations 
appear to be on foot for the departure 
of any vehicle in the shape of a coach. 
You wander into the booking-office, 
which with the gas-lights and blazing 
fire, looks quite comfortable by con- 
trast — that is to say, if any place can 
look comfortable at half-past five on a 
winter's morning. There stands the 
identical book-keeper in the same posi- 
tion as if he had not moved since you 
saw him yesterday. As he informs 
you, that the coach is up the yard, and 
will be brought round in about a 
quarter of an hour, you leave your 
bag, and repair to "The Tap" — not 
with any absurd idea of warming your- 
self, because you feel such a result to 
be utterly hopeless, but for the pur- 
pose of procuring some hot brandy- 
and-water, which you do, — when the 
kettle boils ! an event which occurs 
exactly two minutes and a half before 
the time fixed for the starting of the 
coach. 

The first stroke of six, peals from 
St. Martin's church steeple, just as 
you take the first sip of the boiling 
liquid. You find yourself at the 
booking-office in two seconds, and the 
tap-waiter finds himself much com- 
forted by your brandy-and-water, in 
about the same period. The coach is 
out ; the horses are in, and the guard 
and two or three porters, are stowing 
the luggage away, and running up the 
steps of the booking-office, and down 
the steps of the booking-office, with 
breathless rapidity. The place, which 
6 



S2 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



a few minutes ago was so still and 
quiet, is now all bustle ; the early 
venders of the morning papers have 
arrived, and you are assailed on all 
sides with shouts of " Times, gen'lm'n, 
Times," "Here's Chron — Ghron — 
Citron" "Herald, ma'am," "Highly 
interesting murder, gen'lnfn," " Curi- 
ous case o' breach o' promise, ladies." 
The inside passengers are already in 
their dens, and the outsides, with the 
exception of yourself, are pacing up 
and down the pavement to keep them- 
selves warm ; they consist of two 
young men with very long hair, to 
which the sleet has communicated the 
appearance of crystallised rats' tails ; 
one thin young woman cold and 
peevish, one old gentleman ditto ditto, 
and something in a cloak and cap, 
intended to represent a military officer ; 
every member of the party, with a 
large stiff shawl over his chin, looking 
exactly as if he were playing a set of 
Pan's pipes. 

" Take off the cloths, Bob," says 
the coachman, who now appears for 
the first time, in a rough blue great- 



coat, of which the buttons behind are 
so far apart, that you can't see them 
both at the same time. " Now, gen'l- 
m'n," cries the guard, with the way- 
bill in his hand. " Five minutes 
behind time already ! " Up jump the 
passengers — the two young men smok- 
ing like lime-kilns, and the old gentle- 
man grumbling audibly. The thin 
young woman is got upon the roof, by 
dint of a great deal of pulling, and 
pushing, and helping and trouble, and 
she repays it by expressing her solemn 
conviction that she will never be able 
to get down again. 

" All right," sings out the guard at 
last, jumping up as the coach starts, 
and blowing his horn directly after- 
wards, in proof of the soundness of his 
wind. a Let 'em go, Harry, give 'em 
their heads," cries the coachman — 
and off we start as briskly as if the 
morning were " all right," as well as 
the coach : and looking forward as 
anxiously to the termination of our 
journey, as we fear our readers will 
have done, long since, to the conclusion 
of our paper. 



OMNIBUSES. 



83 



CHAPTER XVI. 



OMNIBUSES. 



It is very generally allowed that public 
conveyances afford an extensive field 
for amusement and observation. Of 
all the public conveyances that have 
been constructed since the days of the 
Ark — we think that is the earliest on 
record — to the present time, commend 
us to an omnibus. A long stage is not 
to be despised, but there you. have only 
six insides, and the chances are, that 
the same people go all the way with 
you — there is no change, no variety. 
Besides, after the first twelve hours or 
so, people get cross and sleepy, and 
when you have seen a man in his 
nightcap, you lose all respect for him ; 
at least, that is the case with us. Then 
on smooth roads people frequently get 
prosy, and tell long stories, and even 
those who don't talk, may have very 
unpleasant predilections. We once 
travelled four hundred miles, inside a 
stage-coach, with a stout man, who 
had a glass of rum-and-water, warm, 
handed in at the window at every place 
where we changed horses. This was 
decidedly unpleasant. We have also 
travelled occasionally, with a small boy 
of a pale aspect, with light hair, and 
no perceptible neck, coming up to 
town from school under the protection 
of the guard, and directed to be left at 
the Cross Keys till called for. This is, 
perhaps, even worse than rum-and- 
water in a close atmosphere. Then 
there is the whole train of evils con- 
sequent on a change of the coachman ; 
and the misery of the discovery — 
which the guard is sure to make the 
moment you begin to doze — that he 
wants a brown-paper parcel, Avhich he 
distinctly remembers to have depo- 
sited under the seat on which you are 
reposing. A great deal of bustle and 
groping takes place, and when you are 
thoroughly awakened, and severely 
cramped, by holding your legs up by 
an almost supernatural exertion, while 



he is looking behind them, it suddenly 
occurs to him that he put it in the 
fore-boot. Bang goes the door ; the 
parcel is immediately found ; off 
starts the coach again ; and the guard 
plays the key-bugle as loud as he 
can play it, as if in mockery of your 
wretchedness. 

Now, you meet with none of these 
afflictions in an omnibus ; sameness 
there can never be. The passengers 
change as often in the course of one 
journey as the figures in a kaleido- 
scope, and though not so glittering, 
are far more amusing. We believe 
there is no instance on record, of a 
man's having gone to sleep in one of 
these vehicles. As to long stories, 
would any man venture to tell a long 
story in an. omnibus % and even if he 
did, where would be the harm \ nobody 
could possibly hear what he was talk- 
ing about. Again ; children, though 
occasionally, are not often to be found 
in an omnibus ; and even when they 
are, if the vehicle be full, as is gene- 
rally the case, somebody sits upon 
them, and we are unconscious of their 
presence. Yes, after mature reflec- 
tion, and considerable experience, we 
are decidedly of opinion, that of all 
known vehicles, from the glass-coach 
in which we were taken to be chris- 
tened, to that sombre caravan in 
which we must one day make our last 
earthly journey, there is nothing like 
an omnibus. 

We will back the machine in which 
Ave make our daily peregrination from 
the top of Oxford-street to the city, 
against any " buss " on the road, 
whether it be for the gaudiness of its 
exterior, the perfect simplicity of its 
interior, or the native coolness of its 
cad. This young gentleman is a sin- 
gular instance of self-devotion ; his 
somewhat intemperate zeal on behalf 
of his employers, is constantly getting 
g2 






84 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



him into trouble, and occasionally 
into the house of correction. He is 
no sooner emancipated, however, than 
he resumes the duties of his profession 
with unabated ardour. His principal 
distinction is his activity. His great 
boast is, "that he can chuck an old 
gen'lm'n into the buss, shut him in, 
and rattle off, afore he knows where 
it 's a-going to " — a feat which he 
frequently performs, to the infinite 
amusement of every one but the old 
gentleman concerned, who, somehow 
or other, never can see the joke of the 
thing. 

We are not aware that it has ever 
been precisely ascertained, how many 
passengers our omnibus will contain. 
The impression on the cad's mind, 
evidently is, that it is amply sufficient 
for the accommodation of any number 
of persons that can be enticed into it. 
" Any room ? " cries a very hot pedes- 
trian. " Plenty o' room, sir," replies 
the conductor, gradually opening the 
door, and not disclosing the real state 
of the case, until the wretched man is 
on the steps. " Where ? " inquires 
the entrapped individual, with an 
attempt to back out again. " Either 
side, sir," rejoins the cad, shoving 
him in, and slamming the door. " All 
right, Bill." Retreat is impossible ; 
the new-comer rolls about, till he falls 
down somewhere, and there he stops. 

As we get into the city a little before 
ten, four or five of our party are 
regular passengers. We always take 
them up at the same places, and they 
generally occupy the same seats ; they 
are always dressed in the same man- 
ner, and invariably discuss the same 
topics — the increasing rapidity of cabs, 
and the disregard of moral obligations 
evinced by omnibus men. There is a 
little testy old man, with a powdered 
head, who always sits on the right- 
hand side of the door as you enter, 
with his hands folded on the top of 
his umbrella. He is extremely impa- 
tient, and sits there for the purpose of 
keeping a sharp eye on the cad, with 
whom he generally holds a running 
dialogue. He is very officious in 
helping people in and out, and always 



volunteers to give the cad a poke with 
his umbrella, when any one wants to 
alight. He usually recommends ladies 
to have sixpence ready, to prevent 
delay ; and if any body puts a window 
down, that he can reach, he immedi- 
ately puts it up again. 

" Now, what are you stopping fori" 
says the little old man every morning, 
the moment there is the slightest indi- 
cation of " pulling up " at the corner 
of Regent-street, when some such 
dialogue as the following takes place 
between him and the cad : 

" What are you stopping for ? " 

Here the cad whistles, and affects 
not to hear the question. 

" I say [a poke], what are you 
stopping for ? " 

" For passengers, sir. Ba — nk. — 
Ty." 

" I know you 're stopping for pas- 
sengers ; but you 've no business to do 
so. Why are you stopping ? " 

<l Vy, sir, that 's a difficult question. 
I think it is because we perfer stopping 
here to going on." 

" Now mind," exclaims the little 
old man, with great vehemence, " I '11 
pull you up to-morrow ; I 've often 
threatened to do it ; now I will." 

" Thankee, sir," replies the cad, 
touching his hat with a mock expres- 
sion of gratitude ; — a werry much 
obliged to you indeed, sir." Here the 
young men in the omnibus laugh very 
heartily, and the old gentleman gets 
very red in the face, and seems highly 
exasperated. 

The stout gentleman in the white 
neckcloth, at the other end of the 
vehicle, looks very prophetic, and says 
that something must shortly be done 
with these fellows, or there 's no say- 
ing where all this will end ; and the 
shabby-genteel man with the green 
bag, expresses his entire concurrence 
in the opinion, as he has done regularly 
every morning for the last six months. 

A second omnibus now comes up, 
and stops immediately behind us. 
Another old gentleman elevates his 
cane in the air, and runs with all his 
might towards our omnibus; we watch 
his progress with great interest ; the 






OMNIBUSES. 



85 



door is opened to receive hiin, lie sud- j undefined idea that they have no busi- 
denly disappears — he has been spirited I ness to come in at all. We are quite 



away by the opposition. Hereupon 
the driver of the opposition taunts our 
people with his having " regularly 
done 'em out of that old swell," and 
the voice of the " old swell " is heard, 
vainly protesting against this unlawful 
detention. We rattle off, the other 
omnibus rattles after us, and every 
time we stop to take up a passenger, 
they stop to take him too ; sometimes 
we gee him ; sometimes they get him ; 
but whoever don't get him, say they 
ought to have had him, and the cads 
of the respective vehicles abuse one 
another accordingly. 

As we arrive in the vicinity of 
Lincoln's-inn-fields, Bedford-row, and 
other legal haunts, we drop a great 
many of our original passengers, and 
take up fresh ones, who meet with a 
very sulky reception. It is rather 
remarkable, that the people already 
in an omnibus, always look at new- 
comers, as if thev entertained some 



persuaded the little old man has some 
notion of this kind and that he con- 
siders their entry as a sort of negative 
impertinence. 

Conversation is now entirely drop- 
ped ; each person gazes vacantly 
through the window in front of him, 
and everybody thinks that his opposite 
neighbour is staring at him. If one 
man gets out at Shoe-lane, and another 
at the corner of Farringdon-street, the 
little old gentleman grumbles, and 
suggests to the latter, that if he had 
got out at Shoe-lane too, he would 
have saved them the delay of another 
stoppage ; whereupon the young men 
laugh again, and the old gentleman 
looks very solemn, and says nothing 
more till he gets to the Bank, when 
he trots off as fast as he can, leaving 
us to do the came, and to wish, as we 
walk away, that we could impart to 
others any portion of the amusement 
we have gained for ourselves. 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



THE LAST CAB-DRIVER, AND THE FIRST OMNIBUS CAD. 



Of all the cabriolet-drivers whom we 
ever had the honour and gratification 
of knowing by sight — and our acquaint- 
ance in this way has been most exten- 
sive — there is one who made an im- 
pression on our mind which can never 
be effaced, and who awakened in our 
bosom a feeling of admiration a&d 
respect, which we entertain a fatal 
presentiment will never be called forth 
again by any human being. He was a 
man of most simple and prepossessing 
appearance. He was a brown- whis- 
kered, white-hatted, no-coated cab- 
man ; his nose was generally red, and 
his bright blue eye not unfrequently 
stood out in bold relief against a black 
border of artificial workmanship ; his 
boots were of the Wellington form, 
pulled up to meet his corduroy knee- 
smalls, or at least to approach as near 
them as their dimensions would admit 
of ; and his neck was usually garnished 
with a bright yellow handkerchief. In 
summer he carried in his mouth a 
flower; in winter, a straw — slight, but 
to a contemplative mind, certain indi- 
cations of a love of nature, and a taste 
for botany. 

His cabriolet was gorgeously painted 
— a bright red; and wherever we went, 
City or West End, Paddington or Hol- 
loway, North, East, West, or South, 
there was the red cab, bumping up 
against the posts at the street corners, 
and turning in and out, among hack- 
ney-coaches, and drays, and carts, and 
waggons, and omnibuses, and contriv- 
ing by some strange means or other, to 
get out of places which no other vehicle 
but the red cab could ever by any pos- 
sibility have contrived to get into at 
all. Our fondness for that red cab was 
unbounded. How we should have liked 
to see it in the circle at Astley's ! Our 
life upon it, that it should have per- 
formed such evolutions as would have 
put the whole company to shame — 



Indian chiefs, knights, Swiss peasants, 
and all. 

Some people object to the exertion 
of getting into cabs, and others object 
to the difficulty of getting out of them ; 
we think both these are objections 
which take their rise in perverse and 
ill-conditioned minds. The getting into 
a cab is a very pretty and graceful 
process, which, when well performed, 
is essentially melodramatic. First, 
there is the expressive pantomime of 
every one of the eighteen cabmen on 
the stand, the moment you raise your 
eyes from the ground. Then there is 
your own pantomime in reply — quite a 
little ballet. Four cabs immediately 
leave the stand, for your especial ac- 
commodation ; and the evolutions of 
the animals who draw them, are beau- 
tiful in the extreme, as they grate the 
wheels of the cabs against the curb- 
stones, and sport playfully in the kennel. 
You single out a particular cab, and 
dart swiftly towards it. One bound, 
and you are on the first step ; turn 
your body lightly round to the right, 
and you are on the second ; bend grace- 
fully beneath the reins, working round 
to the left at the same time, and you 
are in the cab. There is no difficulty 
in finding a seat : the apron knocks you 
comfortably into it at once, and off 
you go. 

The getting out of a cab, is, perhaps, 
rather more complicated in its theory, 
and a shade more difficult in its execu- 
tion. We have studied the subject a 
great deal, and we think the best way 
is, to throw yourself out, and trust to 
chance for alighting on your feet. If 
you make the driver alight first, and 
then throw yourself upon him, you will 
find that he breaks your fall materially. 
In the event of your contemplating an 
offer of eightpence, on no account make 
the tender, or show the money, until 
you are safely on the pavement. It is 



THE LAST CAB-DRIVER. 



87 



very bad policy attempting to save the 
fourpence, You are very much in the 
power of a cabman, and he considers 
it a kind of fee not to do you any wilful 
damage. Any instruction, however, in 
the art of getting out of a cab, is wholly 
unnecessary if you are going any dis- 
tance, because the probability is, that 
you will be shot lightly out before you 
have completed the third mile. 

We are not aware of any instance 
on record in which a cab-horse has 
performed three consecutive miles 
without going down once. What of 
that ? It is all excitement. And in 
these days of derangement of the ner- 
vous system and universal lassitude, 
people are content to pay handsomely 
for excitement ; where can it be pro- 
cured at a cheaper rate ? 

But to return to the red cab ; it was 
omnipresent. You had but to walk 
down Holbom, or Fleet-street, or any 
of the principal thoroughfares in which 
there is a great deal of traffic, and 
judge for yourself. You had hardly 
turned into the street, when you saw 
a trunk or two, lying on the ground : 
an uprooted post, a hat-box, a port- 
manteau, and a carpet-bag, strewed 
about in a very picturesque manner : 
a horse in a cab standing by, looking 
about him with great unconcern ; and 
a crowd, shouting and screaming with 
delight, coohng their flushed faces 
against the glass windows of a che- 
mist's shop. — "What's the matter 
here, can you tell me ? " — " O'ny a cab, 
sir." — " Anybody hurt, do you know ? " 
— "O'ny the fare, sir. I see him a 
turnin' the corner, and I ses to another 
gen'lm'n, ( that 's a reg'lar little oss 
that, and he 's a comin' along rayther 
sweet, an't he V — ' He just is,' ses the 
other gen'lm'n, ven bump they cums 
agin the post, and out flies the fare like 
bricks." Need we say it was the red 
cab; or that the gentleman with the 
straw in his mouth, who emerged so 
coolly from the chemist's shop and 
philosophically climbing into the little 
dickey, started off at full gallop, was 
the red cab's licensed driver ? 

The ubiquity of this red cab, and the 
influence it exercised over the risible 



muscles of justice itself, was perfectly 
astonishing. You walked into the jus- 
tice-room of the Mansion-house ; the 
whole court resounded with merriment. 
The Lord Mayor threw himself back 
in his chair, in a state of frantic delight 
at his own joke ; every vein in Mr. 
Hobler' s countenance Avas swollen with 
laughter, partly at the Lord Mayor's 
facetiousness, but more at his own ; the 
constables and police-officers were (as 
in duty bound) in ecstasies at Mr. 
Hobler and the Lord Mayor combined; 
and the very paupers, glancing respect-* 
fully at the beadle's countenance, tried 
to smile, as even he relaxed. A tall, 
weazen-faced man, with an impediment 
in his speech, would be endeavouring 
to state a case of imposition against 
the red cab's driver; and the red cab's 
driver, and the Lord Mayor, and Mr. 
Hobler, would be having a little, fun 
among themselves, to the inordinate 
delight of everybody but the complain- 
ant. In the end, justice would be so 
tickled with the red-cab-driver's native 
humour, that the fine would be miti- 
gated, and he would go away full 
gallop, in the red cab, to impose on 
somebody else without loss of time. 

The driver of the red cab, confident 
in the strength of his own moral prin- 
ciples, like many other philosophers, 
was wont to set the feelings and opi- 
nions of society at complete defiance. 
Generally speaking, perhaps, he would 
as soon carry a fare safely to his des- 
tination, as he would upset him — 
sooner, perhaps, because in that case 
he not only got the money, but had the 
additional amusement of running a 
longer heat against some smart rival. 
But society made war upon him in the 
shape of penalties, and he must make 
war upon society in his own way. 
This was the reasoning of the red-cab- 
driver. So, he bestowed a searching 
look upon the fare, as he put his hand 
in his waistcoat pocket, when he had 
gone half the mile, to get the money 
ready; and if he brought forth eight- 
pence, out he went. 

The last time we saw our friend was 
one wet evening in Tottenham-court- 
road, when he was engaged in a very 



88 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



warm and somewhat personal alterca- 
tion with a loquacious little gentleman 
in a green coat. Poor fellow ! there 
were great excuses to be made for him: 
he had not received above eighteen- 
pence more than his fare, and conse- 
quently laboured under a great deal of 
very natural indignation. The dispute 
had attained a pretty considerable 
height, when at last the loquacious 
little gentleman, making a mental cal- 
culation of the distance, and finding 
that he had already paid more than he 
ought, avowed his unalterable deter- 
mination to " pull up " the cabman in 
the morning. 

a Now, just mark this, young man," 
said the little gentleman, " I '11 pull 
you up to-morrow morning." 

" No ! will you though 1 " said our 
friend, with a sneer. 

"I will," replied the little gentle- 
man, " mark my words, that 's all. If 
I live till to-morrow morning, you shall 
repent this." 

There was a steadiness of purpose, 
and indignation of speech, about the 
little gentleman, as he took an angry 
pinch of snuff, after this last declara- 
tion, which made a visible impression 
on the mind of the red-cab-driver. He 
appeared to hesitate for an instant. It 
was only for an instant ; his resolve 
was soon taken. 

" You '11 pull me up, will you ? " 
said our friend. 

" I will," rejoined the little gentle- 
man, with even greater vehemence 
than before. 

" Very well," said our friend, tuck- 
ing up his shirt-sleeves very calmly. 
" There '11 be three veeks for that. 
Wery good ; that '11 bring me up to 
the middle o' next month. Three 
veeks more would carry me on to my 
birthday, and then I 've got ten pound 
to draw. I may as well get board, 
lodgin', and washin', till then, out of 
the county, as pay for it myself ; con- 
sequently here goes ! " 

So, without more ado, the red-cab- 
driver knocked the little gentleman 
down, and then called the police to 
take himself into custody, with all the 
civility in the world. 



A story is nothing without the se- 
quel ; and therefore, we may state, 
that to our certain knowledge, the 
board, lodging, and washing, were all 
provided in due course. We happen 
to know the fact, for it came to our 
knowledge thus : We went over the 
House of Correction for the county of 
Middlesex shortly after, to witness the 
operation of the silent system ; and 
looked on all the " wheels " with the 
greatest anxiety, in search of our long- 
lost friend. He was nowhere to be 
seen, however, and we began to think 
that the little gentleman in the green 
coat must have relented,, when, as we 
were traversing the kitchen-garden, 
which lies in a sequestered part of the 
prison, we were startled by hearing a 
voice, which apparently proceeded 
from the wall, pouring forth its soul in 
the plaintive air of " all round my 
hat," which was then just beginning 
to form a recognised portion of our 
national music. 

We started.—" What voice is that ?" 
said we. 

The Governor shook his head. 

" Sad fellow," he replied, " very 
sad. He positively refused to work 
on the wheel ; so, after many trials, I 
was compelled to order him into soli- 
tary confinement. He says he likes 
it very much though, and I am afraid 
he does, for he lies on his back on 
the floor, and sings comic songs all 
day ! " 

Shall we add, that our heart had 
not deceived us ; and that the comic 
singer was no other than our eagerly- 
sought friend, the red- cab-driver ? 

We have never seen him since, but 
we have strong reason to suspect that 
this noble individual was a distant 
relative of a waterman of our acquaint- 
ance, who, on one occasion, when we 
were passing the coach-stand over 
which he presides, after standing very 
quietly to see a tall man struggle into 
a cab, ran up very briskly when it 
was all over (as his brethren invariably 
do), and, touching his hat, asked, as a 
matter of course, for " a copper for 
the waterman." Now, the fare was 
by no means a handsome man ; and, 






THE FIRST OMNIBUS CAD. 



waxing very indignant at the demand, 
he replied—" Money ! What for I 
Coming up and looking at me, I sup- 
pose ? " — "Veil, six*," rejoined the 
waterman, with a smile of immove- 
able complacency, "That's worth two- 
pence." 

This identical waterman afterwards 
attained a very prominent station in 
society ; and as we know something of 



considerable doubt and obscurity. A 
want of application, a restlessness 
of purpose, a thirsting after porter, a 
love of all that is roving and cadger- 
like in nature, shared in common with 
many other great geniuses, appear to 
have been his leading characteristics. 
The busy hum of a parochial free- 
school, and the shady repose of a 
county gaol, were alike inefficacious in, 
his life, and have often thought of producing the slightest alteration in 



telling what we do know, perhaps we 
shall never have a better opportunity 
than the present. 

Mr. William Barker, then, for that 
was the gentleman's name, Mr. William 

Barker was born but why need 

we relate where Mr. William Barker 
was born, or when % Why scrutinise 
the entries in parochial ledgers, or 
seek to penetrate the Lucinian mys- 
teries of lying-in hospitals ? Mr. 
William Barker was born, or he had 
never been. There is a son— there 
was a father. There is an effect — 
there was a cause. Surely this is 
sufficient information for the most 
Fatima-like curiosity ; and, if it be 
not, we regret our inability to supply 
any further evidence on the point. 
Can there be a more satisfactory, or 
more strictly parliamentary course % 
Impossible. 

We at once avow a similar inability 
to record at what precise period, or by 
what particular process, this gentle- 
man's patronymic, of William Barker, 
became corrupted into " Bill Boorker." 
Mr. Barker acquired a high standing, 
and no inconsiderable reputation, 
among the members of that profession 
to which he more peculiarly devoted 
his energies ; and to them he was 
generally known, either by the familiar 
appellation of " Bill Boorker," or the 
flattering designation of " Aggerawatin 
Bill," the latter being a playful and 
expressive sobriquet, illustrative of 
Mr. Barker's great talent in " aggera- 
watin " and rendering Avild such sub- 
jects of her Majesty as are conveyed 
from place to place, through the instru- 
mentality of omnibuses. Of the early 
life of Mr. Barker little is known, 
and even that little is involved in 



Mr. Barker's disposition. His fever- 
ish attachment to change and variety, 
nothing could repress ; his native 
daring no punishment could subdue. 

If Mr. Barker can be fairly said to 
have had any weakness in his earlier 
years, it was an amiable one — love ; 
love in its most comprehensive form 
— a love of ladies, liquids, and pocket- 
handkerchiefs. It was no selfish feel- 
ing ; it was not confined to his own 
possessions, which but too many men 
regard with exclusive complacency. 
No ; it was a nobler love — a general 
principle. It extended itself with 
equal force to the property of other 
people. 

There is something very affecting 
in this. It is still more affecting to 
know, that such philanthropy is but 
imperfectly rewarded. Bow-street, 
Newgate, and Millbank, are a poor 
return for general benevolence, 
evincing itself in an irrepressible love 
for all created objects. Mr. Barker 
felt it so. After a lengthened inter- 
view with the highest legal authorities, 
he quitted his ungrateful country, with 
the consent, and at the expense, of its 
Government ; proceeded to a distant 
shore ; and there employed himself, 
like another Cincinnatus, in clearing 
and cultivating the soil — a peaceful 
pursuit, in which a term of seven 
years glided almost imperceptibly 
away. 

Whether, at the expiration of the 
period we have just mentioned, the 
British Government required Mr. 
Barker's presence here, or did not 
require his residence abroad, we have 
no distinct means of ascertaining. 
We should be inclined, however, to 
favour the latter position, inasmuch as 



90 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



we do not find that he was advanced 
to any other public post on his return, 
than the post at the corner of the Hay- 
market, where he officiated as assistant- 
waterman to the hackney-coaeh-stand. 
Seated, in this capacity, on a couple of 
tubs near the curb-stone, with a brass 
plate and number suspended round his 
neck by a massive chain, and his 
ankles curiously enveloped in hay- 
bands, he is supposed to have made 
those observations on human nature 
which exercised so material an influ- 
ence over all his proceedings in later 
life. 

Mr. Barker had not officiated for 
many months in this capacity, when 
the appearance of the first omnibus 
caused the public mind to go in a new 
direction, and prevented a great many 
hackney-coaches from going in any 
direction at all. The genius of Mr. 
Barker at once perceived the whole 
extent of the injury that would be 
eventually inflicted on cab and coach 
stands, and, by consequence, on water- 
men also, by the progress of the sys- 
tem of which the first omnibus was a 
part. He saw, too, the necessity of 
adopting some more profitable profes- 
sion ; and his active mind at once 
perceived how much might be done in 
the way of enticing the youthful and 
unwary, and shoving the old and help- 
less, into the wrong buss, and carrying 
them off, until, reduced to despair, 
they ransomed themselves by the pay- 
ment of sixpence a-head, or, to adopt 
his own figurative expression in all its 
native beauty, " till they was rig'larly 
done over, and forked out the 
stumpy." 

An opportunity for realising his 
fondest anticipations, soon presented 
itself. Rumours were rife on the 
hackney-coach-stands, that a buss was 
building, to run from Lisson-grove to 
the Bank, down Oxford-street and 
Holborn ; and the rapid increase of 
busses on the Paddington-road, en- 
couraged the idea. Mr. Barker 
secretly and cautiously inquired in the 
proper quarters. The report was cor- 
rect ; the " Royal William " was to 
make its first journey on the following 



Monday. It was a crack affair alto- 
gether. An enterprising young cab- 
man, of established reputation as a 
dashing whip— for he had compro- 
mised with the parents of three 
scrunched children, and just " worked 
out " his fine, for knocking down an 
old lady — was the driver ; and the 
spirited proprietor, knowing Mr. 
Barker's qualifications, appointed him 
to the vacant office of cad on the very 
first application. The buss began to 
run, and Mr. Barker entered into a 
new suit of clothes, and on a new 
sphere of action. 

To recapitulate all the improvements 
introduced by this extraordinary man, 
into the omnibus system — gradually, 
indeed, but surely — would occupy a 
far greater space than we are enabled 
to devote to this imperfect memoir. 
To him is universally assigned the 
original suggestion of the practice 
which afterwards became so general 
— of the driver of a second buss keep- 
ing constantly behind the first one, and 
driving the pole of his vehicle either 
into the door of the other, every time 
it was opened, or through the body of 
any lady or gentleman who might 
make an attempt to get into it ; a 
humorous and pleasant invention, 
exhibiting all that originality of idea, 
and fine bold flow of spirits, so con- 
spicuous in every action of this great 
man. 

Mr. Barker had opponents of course; 
what man in public life has not ? But 
even his worst enemies cannot deny 
that he has taken more old ladies and 
gentlemen to Paddington who wanted 
to go to the Bank, and more old ladies 
and gentlemen to the Bank who wanted 
to go to Paddington, than any six men 
on the road ; and however much male- 
volent spirits may pretend to doubt 
the accuracy of the statement, they 
well know it to be an established fact, 
that he has forcibly conveyed a variety 
of ancient persons of either sex, to 
both places, who had not the slightest 
or most distant intention of going any 
where at all. 

Mr. Barker was the identical cad 
who nobly distinguished himself, some- 



THE FIRST OMNIBUS CAD. 



.91 



time since, by keeping a tradesman 
on the step — the omnibus going at full 
speed all the time — till he had thrashed 
him to his entire satisfaction, and 
finally throwing him away, when he 
had quite done with him. Mr. Barker 
it ought to have been, who honestly 
indignant at being ignominiously ej ected 
from a house of public entertainment, 
kicked the landlord in the knee, and 
thereby caused his death. We say it 
ought to have been Mr. Barker, because 
the action was not a common one, and 
could have emanated from no ordinary 
mind. 

It has now become matter of history ; 
it is recorded in the Newgate Calendar; 
and we wish we could attribute this 
piece of daring heroism to Mr. Barker. 
We regret being compelled to state 
that it was not performed by him. 
Would, for the family credit we could 
add, that it was achieved by his 
brother ! 

It was in the exercise of the nicer 
details of his profession, that Mr. Bar- 
ker's knowledge of human nature was 
beautifully displayed. He could tell 
at a glance where a passenger wanted 
to go to, and would shout the 
name of the place accordingly, without 
the slightest reference to the real 
destination of the vehicle. He knew 
exactly the kind of old lady that would 
be too much flurried by the process of 
pushing in, and pulling out of the 
caravan, to discover where she had 
been put clown, until too late ; had an 



intuitive perception of what was pass- 
ing in a passenger's mind when he 
inwardly resolved to " pull that cad 
up to-morrow morning ; '' and never 
failed to make himself agreeable to 
female servants, whom he would place 
next the door, and talk to all the 
way. 

Human judgment is never infallible, 
and it would occasionally happen that 
Mr. Barker experimentalised with the 
timidity or forbearance of the wrong 
person, in which case a summons to a 
Police-office, was, on more than one 
occasion, followed by a committal to 
prison. It was not in the power of 
trifles such as these, however, to sub- 
due the freedom of his spirit. As 
soon as they passed away, he resumed 
the duties of his profession with un- 
abated ardour. 

We have spoken of Mr. Barker and 
of the red-cab-driver, in the past tense. 
Alas ! Mr. Barker has again become 
an absentee ; and the class of men to 
which they both belonged are fast dis- 
appearing. Improvement has peered 
beneath the aprons of our cabs, and 
penetrated to the very innermost 
recesses of our omnibuses. Dirt and 
fustian will vanish before cleanliness 
and livery. Slang will be forgotten 
when civility becomes general : and 
that enlightened, eloquent, sage, and 
profound body, the Magistracy of 
London, will be deprived of half 
their amusement, and half their 
occupation. 



92 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



A PARLIAMENTARY SKETCH. 



We hope our readers will not be 
alarmed at this rather ominous title. 
We assure them that we are not about 
to become political, neither have we 
the slightest intention of being more 
prosy than usual — if we can help it. 
It has occurred to us that a slight 
sketch of the general aspect of K the 
House," and the crowds that resort 
to it on the night of an important 
debate, would be productive of some 
amusement : and as we have made 
some few calls at the aforesaid house 
in our time — have visited it quite often 
enough for our purpose, and a great I 
deal too often for our own personal 
peace and comfort — we have deter- 
mined to attempt the description. 
Dismissing from our minds, therefore, 
all that feeling of awe, which vague 
ideas of breaches of privilege, Serjeant- 
at-Arms, heavy denunciations, and 
still heavier fees, are calculated to 
awaken, we enter at once into the 
building, and upon our subject. 

Half-past four o'clock — and at five 
the mover of the Address will be " on 
his legs," as the newspapers announce 
sometimes by way of novelty, as if j 
speakers were occasionally in the 
habit of standing on their heads. The 
members are pouring in, one after 
the other, in shoals. The few spec- I 
tators who can obtain standing-room I 
in the passages, scrutinise them as 
they pass, with the utmost interest, 
and the man who can identify a mem- 
ber occasionally, becomes a person 
of great importance. Every now 
and then you hear earnest whispers 
of "That's Sir John Thomson." 
" Which ? him with the gilt order 
round his neck I " " No, no ; that 's 
one of the messengers — that other 
with the yellow gloves, is Sir John 
Thomson.'" " Here's Mr. Smith." 
*' Lor !" "Yes, how d'ye do, sir ? — 
(He is our new member) — How do 



you do, sir ? " Mr. Smith stops : 
turns round, with an air of enchanting 
urbanity (for the rumour of an intended 
dissolution has been very extensively 
circulated this morning) ; seizes both 
the hands of his gratified constituent, 
and, after greeting him with the most 
enthusiastic warmth, darts into the 
lobby with an extraordinary display of 
ardour in the public cause, leaving an 
immense impression in his favour on 
the mind of his "fellow-townsman." 

The arrivals increase in number, 
and the heat and noise increase in very 
unpleasant proportion. The livery ser- 
vants form a complete lane on either 
side of the passage, and you reduce 
yourself into the smallest possible 
space to avoid being turned out. You 
see that stout man with the hoarse 
voice, in the blue coat, queer crowned, 
broad-brimmed hat, white corduroy 
breeches, and great boots, who has 
been talking incessantly for half an 
hour past, and whose importance has 
occasioned no small quantity of mirth 
among the strangers. That is the 
great conservator of the peace of 
Westminster. You cannot fail to 
have remarked the grace with which 
he saluted the noble Lord who passed 
just now, or the excessive dignity of 
his air, as he expostulates with the 
crowd. He is rather out of temper 
now, in consequence of the very 
irreverent behaviour of those two 
young fellows behind him, who have 
done nothing but laugh all the time 
they have been here. 

" Will they divide to-night, do you 

think, Mr. ? " timidly inquires 

a little thin man in the crowd, hoping 
to conciliate the man of office. 

" How can you ask such questions, 
sir ? " replies the functionary, in an 
incredibly loud key, and. pettishly 
grasping the thick stick he carries in 
his right hand. " Pray do not, sir, 



A PARLIAMENTARY SKETCH. 



93 






I beg of you ; pray do not, sir." The 
little man looks remarkably out of his 
element, and the uninitiated part of 
the throng are in positive convulsions 
of laughter. 

Just at this moment some unfor- 
tunate individual appears, with a very 
smirking air, at the bottom of the 
long passage. He has managed to 
elude the vigilance of the special con- 
stable down stairs, and is evidently 
congratulating himself on having made 
his way so far. 

u Go back, sir — you must not come 
here," shouts the hoarse one, with 
tremendous emphasis of voice and 
gesture, the moment the offender 
catches his eye. 

The stranger pauses. 

"Do you hear, sir — will you go 
back?" continues the official digni- 
tary, gently pushing the intruder some 
half-dozen yards. 

" Come, don't push me," replies the 
stranger, turning angrily round. 

" I will, sir." 

" You won't, sir." 

" Go out, sir." 

" Take your hands off me, sir." 

" Go out off the passage, sir." 

" You 're a Jack-in-office, sir." 

" A what ? " ejaculates he of the 
boots. 

" A Jack-in-office, sir, and a very 
insolent fellow," reiteratesthe stranger, 
now completely in a passion. 

" Pray do not force me to put you 
cut, sir," retorts the other — " pray 
do not — my instructions are to keep 
this passage clear — it's the Speaker's 
orders, sir." 

"D — n the Speaker, sir!" shouts 
the intruder. 

" Here, Wilson ! — Collins ! " gasps 
the officer, actually paralysed at this 
insulting expression, which in his 
mind is all but high treason ; " take 
this man out — take him out, I say ! 
How dare you, sir ?" and down goes 
the unfortunate man five stairs at a 
time, turning round at every stoppage, 
to come back again, and denouncing 
bitter vengeance against the com- 
mander-in-chief, and all his super- 
numeraries. 



" Make way, gentlemen, — pray make 
way for the Members, I beg of you 1" 
shouts the zealous officer, turning back, 
and preceding a whole string of the 
liberal and independent. 

You see this ferocious-looking gen- 
tleman, with a complexion almost as 
sallow as his linen, and whose large 
black moustache would give him the 
appearance of a figure in a hair- 
dresser's window, if his countenance 
possessed the thought which is com- 
municated to those waxen caricatures 
of the human face divine. He is .a 
militia-officer, and the most amusing 
person in the House. Can anything 
be more exquisitely absurd than the 
burlesque grandeur of his air, as he 
strides up to the lobby, his eyes rolling 
like those of a Turk's head in a cheap 
Dutch clock ? He never appears 
without that bundle of dirty papers 
which he carries under his left arm, 
and which are generally supposed to 
be the miscellaneous estimates for 
1804, or some equally important docu- 
ments. He is very punctual in his 
attendance at the House, and his self- 
satisfied " He-ar-He-ar," is not un- 
frequently the signal for a general 
titter. 

This is the gentleman who once 
actually sent a messenger up to the 
Strangers' gallery in the old House of 
Commons, to inquire the name of an 
individual who was using an eye-glass, 
in order that he might complain to the 
Speaker that the person in question 
was quizzing him ! On another occa- 
sion, he is reported to have repaired 
to Bellamy's kitchen — a refreshment- 
room, where persons who are not 
Members are admitted on sufferance, 
as it were — and perceiving two or 
three gentlemen at supper, who 
he was aware were not Members, 
and could not, in that place, very 
well resent his behaviour, he in- 
dulged in the pleasantry of sitting 
with his booted leg on the table at 
which they were supping ! He is 
generally harmless, though, and al- 
ways amusing. 

By dint of patience, and some little 
interest with our friend the constable. 



Si 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



we have contrived to make our way to 
the Lobby, and you can just manage 
to catch an occasional glimpse of the 
House, as the door is opened for the 
admission of Members. It is tolerably 
full already, and little groups of Mem- 
bers are congregated together here, 
discussing the interesting topics of 
the day. 

That smart-looking fellow in the 
black coat with velvet facings and 
cuffs, who wears his D' Or say hat so 
rakishly, is " Honest Tom," a metro- 
politan representative ; and the large 
man in the cloak with the white lining 
— not the man by the pillar ; the other 
with the light hair hanging over his 
coat collar behind, — is his colleague. 
The quiet gentlemanly-looking man hi 
the blue surtout, gray trousers, white 
neckerchief, and gloves, whose closely- 
buttoned coat displays his manly figure 
and broad chest to great advantage, is 
a very well-known character. He has 
fought a great many battles in his 
time, and conquered like the heroes of 
old, with no other arms than those the 
gods gave him. The old hard-featured 
man who is standing near him, is 
really a good specimen of a class of 
men, now nearly extinct. He is a 
county Member, and has been from 
time whereof the memory of man is 
not to the contrary. Look at his 
loose, wide, brown coat, with capacious 
pockets on each side ; the knee- 
breeches and boots, the immensely 
long waistcoat, and silver watch-chain 
dangling below it, the wide-brimmed 
brown hat, and the white handkerchief 
tied in a great bow, with straggling 
ends sticking out beyond his shirt-frill. 
It is a costume one seldom sees nowa- 
days, and when the few who wear it 
have died off, it will be quite extinct. 
He can tell you long stories of Fox, 
Pitt, Sheridan, and Canning, and how 
much better the House was managed 
in those times, when they used to get 
up at eight or nine o'clock, except on 
regular field-days, of which every body 
was apprised beforehand. He has a 
great contempt for all young Members 
of Parliament, and thinks it quite im- 
possible that a man can say any thing 



worth hearing, unless he has sat in the 
House for fifteen years at least, with- 
out saying anything at all. He is of 
opinion that " that young Macaulay" 
was a regular impostor ; he allows, 
that Lord Stanley may do something 
one of these days, but " he 's too young, 
sir — too young." He is an excellent 
authority on points of precedent, and 
when he grows talkative, after his 
wine, will tell you how Sir Somebody 
Something, when he was whipper-in 
for the Government, brought four men 
out of their beds to vote in the ma- 
jority, three of whom died on their 
way home again ; how the House 
once divided on the question, that 
fresh candles be now brought in ; how 
the Speaker was once upon a time left 
in the chair by accident, at the con- 
clusion of business, and was obliged to 
sit in the House by himself for three 
hours, till some Member could be 
knocked up and brought back again, to 
move the adjournment ; and a great 
many other anecdotes of a similar 
description. 

There he stands, leaning on his 
stick ; looking at the throng of Ex- 
quisites around him with most profound 
contempt ; and conjuring up, before 
his mind's eye, the scenes he beheld in 
the old House in days gone by, when 
his own feelings were fresher and 
brighter, and when, as he imagines, 
wit, talent, and patriotism flourished 
more brightly too. 

You are curious to know who that 
young man in the rough great-coat is, 
who has accosted every Member who 
has entered the House since we have 
been standing here. He is not a Mem- 
ber ; he is only an " hereditary bonds- 
man," or, in other words, an Irish 
correspondent of an Irish newspaper, 
who has just procured his forty-second 
frank from a Member whom he never 
saw in his life before. There he 
goes again — another ! Bless the man, 
he has his hat and pockets full 
already. 

We will try our fortune at the 
Strangers' gallery, though the nature 
of the debate encourages very little 
hope of success. What on earth are 






A PARLIAMENTARY SKETCH. 



05 






you about % Holding up your order 
as if it were a talisman at whose com- 
mand the wicket would fly open ? 
Nonsense. Just preserve the order 
for an autograph, if it be worth keep- 
ing at all, and make your appearance 
at the door with your thumb and fore- 
finger expressively inserted in your 
waistcoat-pocket. This tall stout man 
in black is the door-keeper. " Any 
room ? " " Not an inch — two or three 
dozen gentlemen waiting down stairs 
on the chance of somebody's going 
out." Pull out your purse — " Are 
you quite sure there 's no room ? " — 
" I '11 go and look,"- replies the door- 
keeper, with a wistful glance at your 
purse, " but I 'm afraid there 's not." 
He returns, and with real feeling 
assures you that it is morally impos- 
sible to get near the gallery. It is of 
no use waiting. When you are re- 
fused admission into the Strangers' 
gallery at the House of Commons, 
under such circumstances, you may 
return home thoroughly satisfied that 
the place must be remarkably full 
indeed.* 

Retracing our steps through the 
long passage, descending the stairs, 
and crossing Palace-yard, we halt at a 
small temporary door- way adjoining 
the King's entrance to the House of 
Lords. The order of the serjeant-at- 
arms will admit- you into the Re- 
porters' gallery, from whence you can 
obtain a tolerably good view of the 
House. Take care of the stairs, they 
are none of the best ; through this 
little wicket — there. As soon as your 
eyes become a little used to the mist of 
the place, and the glare of the chande- 
liers below you, you will see that some 
unimportant personage on the Minis- 
terial side of the House (to your right 
hand) is speaking, amidst a hum of 
voices and confusion which would rival 
Babel, but for the circumstance of its 
being all in one language. 

The " hear, hear," which occasioned 
that laugh, proceeded from our war- 



* This paper was written before the practice 
of exhibiting Members of Parliament, like 
other curiosities, for the small charge of half- 
a- crown, was abolished. 



like friend with the moustache ; he is 
sitting on the back seat against the 
wall, behind the Member who is speak- 
ing, looking as ferocious and intellec- 
tual as usual. Take one look around 
you, and retire ! The body of the 
House and the side galleries are full of 
Members ; some, with their legs on the 
back of the opposite seat ; some, with 
theirs stretched out to their utmost 
length on the floor ; some, going 
out, others coming in ; all talking, 
laughing, lounging, coughing, o-ing, 
questioning, or groaning ; presenting 
a conglomeration of noise and confu- 
sion, to be met with in no other place 
in existence, not even excepting Smith- 
field on a market-day, or a cockpit in 
its glory. 

But let us not omit to notice Bel- 
lamy's kitchen, or, in other words, the 
refreshment-room, common to both 
Houses of Parliament, where Ministe- 
rialists and Oppositionists, Whigs and 
Tories, Radicals, Peers, and Destruc- 
tives, strangers from the gallery, and 
the more favoured strangers from be- 
low the bar, are alike at liberty to 
resort ; where divers honourable mem- 
bers prove their perfect independence 
by remaining during the whole of a 
heavy debate, solacing themselves with 
the creature comforts ; and whence 
they are summoned by whippers-in, 
when the House is on the point of 
dividing ; either to give their " consci- 
entious votes" on questions of which 
they are conscientiously innocent of 
knowing anything whatever, or to find 
a vent for the playful exuberance of 
their wine-inspired fancies, in boiste- 
rous shouts of " Divide," occasionally 
varied with a little howling, barking, 
crowing, or other ebullitions of sena^- 
torial pleasantry. 

When you have ascended the narrow 
staircase which, in the present tempo- 
rary House of Commons, leads to the 
place we are describing, you will pro- 
bably observe a couple of rooms on 
your right hand, with tables spread 
for dining. Neither of these is the 
kitchen, although they are both 
devoted to the same purpose ; the 
kitchen is further on to our left, up these 



9G 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



half-dozen stairs. Before we ascend 
the staircase, however, we must request 
you to pause in front of this little bar- 
place with the sash-windows ; and beg 
your particular attention to the steady 
honest-looking old fellow in black, who 
is its sole occupant. Nicholas (we do 
not mind mentioning the old fellow's 
name, for if Nicholas be not a public 
man, who is ? — and public men's names 
are public property) — Nicholas is the 
butler of Bellamy's, and has held the 
same place, dressed exactly in the 
same manner, and said precisely the 
same things, ever since the oldest of 
its present visiters can remember. An 
excellent servant Nicholas is — an un- 
rivalled compounder of salad-dressing 
— an admirable preparer of soda-water 
and lemon — a special mixer of cold 
grog and punch — and, above all, an 
unequalled judge of cheese. If the 
old man have such a thing as vanity 
in his composition, this is certainly 
his pride ; and if it be possible to 
imagine that any thing in this world 
could disturb his impenetrable calm- 
ness, we should say it would be the 
doubting his judgment on this impor- 
tant point. 

We needn't tell you all this, how- 
ever, for if you have an atom of ob- 
servation, one glance at his sleek, 
knowing-looking head and face — his 
prim white neckerchief, with the 
wooden tie into which it has been 
regularly folded for twenty years past, 
merging by imperceptible degrees into 
a small-plaited shirt-frill — and his 
comfortable-looking form encased in a 
well-brushed suit of black — would give 
you a better idea of his real character 
than a column of our poor description 
could convey. 

Nicholas is rather out of his element 
now ; he cannot see the kitchen as he 
used to in the old House ; there, one 
window of his glass-case opened into 
the room, and then, for the edification 
and behoof of more juvenile question- 
ers, he would stand for an hour toge- 
ther, answering deferential questions 
about Sheridan, and Perceval, and 
Castlereagh, and Heaven knows who 
beside, with manifest delight, always 



inserting a " Mister " before every 
commoner's name. 

Nicholas, like all men of his age 
and standing, has a great idea of the 
degeneracy of the times. He seldom 
expresses any political opinions, but 
we managed to ascertain, just before 
the passing of the Reform Bill, that 
Nicholas was a thorough Reformer. 
What was our astonishment to discover 
shortly after the meeting of the first 
reformed Parliament, that he was a 
most inveterate and decided Tory ! It 
was very odd : some men change their 
opinions from necessity, others from 
expediency, others • from inspiration ; 
but that Nicholas should undergo any 
change in any respect, was an event 
we had never contemplated, and should 
have considered impossible. His 
strong opinion against the clause which 
empowered the metropolitan districts 
to return Members to Parliament, too, 
was perfectly unaccountable. 

We discovered the secret at last ; 
the metropolitan Members always 
dined at home. The rascals ! As 
for giving additional Members to Ire- 
land, it Avas even worse — decidedly 
unconstitutional. Why, sir, an Irish 
Member would go up there, and eat 
more dinner than three English Mem- 
bers put together. He took no wine ; 
drank table-beer by the half-gallon ; 
and went home to Manchester-build- 
ings, or Millbank-street, for his whis- 
key-and-water. And what was the 
consequence ? Why the concern lost 
— actually lost, Sir — by his patronage. 

A queer old fellow is Nicholas, and 
as completely a part of the building as 
the house itself. We wonder he ever 
left the old place, and fully expected 
to see in the papers, the morning after 
the fire, a pathetic account of an old 
gentleman in black, of decent appear- 
ance, who was seen at one of the upper 
windows when the flames were at their 
height, and declared his resolute inten- 
tion of falling with the floor. He must 
have been got out by force. However, 
he was got out — here he is again, looking 
as he always does, as if he had been in 
a bandbox ever since the last session. 
There he is, at his old post every night, 



A PARLIAMENTARY SKETCH. 



97 



just as we have described him. : and, 
as characters are scarce, and faithful 
servants scarcer, long may he be there 
say we ! 

Now, when you have taken your 
seat in the kitchen, and duly noticed 
the large fire and roasting-jack at one 
end of the room — the little table for 
washing glasses and draining jugs at 
the other — the clock over the window 
opposite St. Margaret's Church — the 
deal tables and wax candles — the 
damask table-cloths and bare floor — 
the plate and china on the tables, and 
the gridiron on the fire; and a few 
other anomalies peculiar to the place 
— we will point out to your notice two 
or three of the people present, whose 
station or absurdities render them the 
m©st worthy of remark. 

It is half-past twelve o'clock, and as 
the division is not expected for an hour 
or two, a few Members are lounging 
away the time here, in preference to 
standing at the bar of the House, or 
sleeping in one of the side galleries. 
That singularly awkward and ungainly- 
looking man, in the brownish-white 
hat, with the straggling black trousers 
which reach about half-way down the 
leg of his boots, who is leaning against 
the meat-screen, apparently deluding 
himself into the belief that he is think- 
. ing about something, is a splendid 
sample of a Member of the House of 
Commons concentrating in his own 
person the wisdom of a constituency. 
Observe the wig, of a dark hue but 
indescribable colour, for if it be natu- 
rally brown, it has acquired a black 
tint by long service, and if it be natu- 
rally black, the same cause has im- 
parted to it a tinge of rusty brown ; 
and remark how very materially :he 
great blinker-like spectacles assist the 
expression of that most intelligent face. 
Seriously speaking, did you ever see a 
countenance so expressive of the most 
hopeless extreme of heavy dulness, or 
behold a form so strangely put toge- 
ther ? He is no great speaker : but 
when he does address the House, the 
effect is absolutely irresistible. 

The small gentleman with the sharp 
nose, who has just saluted him, is a 

No. 179. 



Member of Parliament, an ex- Alder- 
man, and a sort of amateur fireman. 
He, and the celebrated fireman's dog, 
were observed to be remarkably active 
at the conflagration of the two Houses 
of Parliament — they both ran up and 
down, and in and out, getting under 
people's feet, and into every body's 
way, fully impressed with the belief, 
that they were doing a great deal of 
good, and barking tremendously. The 
dog went quietly back to his kennel 
with the engine, but the gentleman 
kept up such an incessant noise for . 
some weeks after the occurrence, 
that he became a positive nuisance. 
As no more parliamentary fires have 
occurred, however, and as he has conse- 
quently had no more opportunities of 
writing to the newspapers to relate 
how, by way of preserving pictures, he 
cut them out of their frames, and per- 
formed other great national services, 
he has gradually relapsed into his old 
state of calmness. 

That female in black — not the one 
whom the Lord's-Day-Bill Baronet 
has just chucked under the chin ; the 
shorter of the two — is " Jane :" the 
Hebe of Bellamy's. Jane is as great a 
character as Nicholas, in her way. Her 
leading features are a thorough con- 
tempt for the great majority of her 
visiters ; her predominant quality, love 
of admiration, a? you cannot fail to 
observe, if you mark the glee with 
which she listens to something the 
young Member near her mutters 
somewhat unintelligibly in her ear (for 
his speech is rather thick from some 
cause or other), and how playfully she 
digs the handle of a fork into the arm 
with which he detains her, by way of 
reply. 

Jane is no bad hand at repartees, 
and showers them about, with a degree 
of liberality and total absence of re- 
serve or constraint, which occasionally 
excites no small amazement in the 
minds of strangers. She cuts jokes 
with Nicholas, too, but looks up to him 
with a great deal of respect ; the im- 
moveable solidity with which Nicholas 
receives the aforesaid jokes, and looks 
on, at certain pastoral friskings and 
h 7 



98 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



rorupings (Jane's only recreations, 
and they are very innocent too) which 
occasionally take place in the passage, 
is not the least amusing part of his 
character. 

The two persons who are seated at 
the table in the corner, at the farther 
end of the room, have been constant 
guests here, for many years past ; and 
one of them has feasted within these 
walls, many a time, with the most bril- 
liant characters of a brilliant period. 
He has gone up to the other House 
since then ; the greater part of his 
boon companions have shared Yorick's 
fate, and his visits to Bellamy's are 
comparatively few. 

If he really be eating his supper 
now, at what hour can he possibly have 
dined ! A second solid mass of rump- 
steak has disappeared, and he eat the 
first in four minutes and three quar- 
ters, by the clock over the window. 
Was there ever such a personification 
of Falstaff ! Mark the air with which 
he gloats over that Stilton as he re- 
moves the napkin which has been 
placed beneath his chin to catch the 
superfluous gravy of the steak, and 
with what gusto he imbibes the porter 
which has been fetched, expressly for 
him, in the pewter pot. Listen to the 
hoarse sound of that voice, kept down 
as it is by layers of solids, and deep 
draughts of rich wine, and tell us if 
you ever saw such a perfect picture of 
a regular gourmand ; and whether he 
is not exactly the man whom you would 
pitch upon as having been the partner 
of Sheridan's parliamentary carouses, 



the volunteer driver of the hackney- 
coach that took him home, and the 
involuntary upsetter of the whole party ? 

What an amusing contrast between 
his voice and appearance, and that of 
the spare, squeaking old man, who sits 
at the same table, and who elevating a 
little cracked bantam sort of voice to 
its highest pitch, invokes damnation 
upon his own eyes or somebody else's 
at the commencement of every sen- 
tence he utters. " The Captain," as 
they call him, is a very old frequenter 
of Bellamy's ; much addicted to stop- 
ping " after the House is up " (an inex- 
piable crime in Jane's eyes), and a 
complete walking reservoir of spirits 
and water. 

The old Peer — or rather, the old 
man — for his peerage is of compara- 
tively recent date — has a huge tumbler 
of hot punch brought him ; and the 
other damns and drinks, and drinks and 
damns, and smokes. Members arrive 
every moment in a great bustle to re- 
port that * The Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer 's up," and to get glasses of 
brandy -and -water to sustain them 
during the division ; people who have 
ordered supper, countermand it, and 
prepare to go down stairs, when sud- 
denly a bell is heard to ring with tre- 
mendous violence, and a cry of " Di- 
vi-sion !" is heard in the passage. This 
is enough ; away rush the members 
pell-mell. The room is cleared in an 
instant ; the noise rapidly dies away ; 
you hear the creaking of the last boot 
on the last stair, and are left alone 
with the leviathan of rump-steaks. 



PUBLIC DINNERS. 



99 



CHAPTER XIX. 



PUBLIC DINNERS. 



All public dinners in London, from 
the Lord Mayor's annual banquet at 
Guildhall, to the Chimney-sweepers' 
anniversary at White Conduit House ; 
from the Goldsmiths' to the Butchers', 
from the Sheriffs' to the Licensed 
Victuallers' ; are amusing scenes. Of 
all entertainments of this description, 
however, we think the annual dinner 
of some public charity is the most 
amusing. At a Company's dinner, the 
people are nearly all alike — regular 
old stagers, who make it a matter of 
business, and a thing not to be laughed 
at. At a political dinner, every body 
is disagreeable, and inclined to speech- 
ify — much the same thing, by the by ; 
but at a charity dinner you see people 
of all sorts, kinds, and descriptions. 
The wine may not be remarkably spe- 
cial, to be sure, and we have heard 
some hard-hearted monsters grumble 
at the collection ; but we really think 
the amusement to be derived from the 
occasion, sufficient to counterbalance, 
even these disadvantages. 

Let us suppose you are induced to 
attend a dinner of this description — 
"Indigent Orphans' Friends' Benevo- 
lent Institution," we think it is. The 
name of the charity is a line or two 
longer, but never mind the rest. You 
have a distinct recollection, however, 
that you purchased a ticket at the soli- 
citation of some charitable friend : and 
you deposit yourself in a hackney- 
coach, the driver of which — no doubt 
that you may do the thing in style — 
turns a deaf ear to your earnest en- 
treaties to be set down at the corner 
of Great Queen-street, and persists in 
carrying you to the very door of the 
Freemasons', round which a crowd of 
people are assembled to witness the 
entrance of the indigent orphans' 
friends. You hear great speculations 
as you pay the fare, on the possibility 
of your being the noble Lord who is 



announced to fill the chair on the occa- 
sion, and are highly gratified to hear 
it eventually decided that you are only 
a u wocalist." 

The first thing that strikes you, on 
your entrance, is the astonishing im- 
portance of the committee. You ob-* 
serve a door on the first landing, 
carefully guarded by two waiters, in 
and out of which stout gentlemen with 
very red faces keep running, with a 
degree of speed highly unbecoming the 
gravity of persons of their years and 
corpulency. You pause, quite alarmed 
at the bustle, and thinking, in your 
innocence, that two or three people 
must have been carried out of the 
dining-room in fits, at least. You 
are immediately undeceived by the 
waiter — " Up stairs, if you please, 
sir ; this is the committee-room." Up 
stairs you go, accordingly ; wondering, 
as you mount, what the duties of the 
committee can be, and whether they 
ever do anything beyond confusing 
each other, and running over the 
waiters. 

Having deposited your hat and cloak, 
and received a remarkably small scrap 
of pasteboard in exchange (which, as 
a matter of course, you lose, before 
you require it again), you enter the 
hall, down which there are three long 
tables for the less distinguished guests, 
with a cross table on a raised platform 
at the upper end for the reception of 
the very particular friends of the indi- 
gent orphans. Being fortunate enough 
to find a plate without anybody's card 
in it, you wisely seat yourself at once, 
and have a little leisure to look about 
you. Waiters, with wine-baskets in 
their hands, are placing decanters of 
sherry down the tables, at very re- 
spectable distances ; melancholy-look- 
ing saltcellars, and decayed vinegar- 
cruets, which might have belonged to 
the parents of the indigent orphans in 
H 2 



100 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



their time, are scattered at distant 
intervals on the cloth ; and the knives 
and forks look as if they had done 
duty at every public dinner in London 
since the accession of George the First. 
The musicians are scraping and grating 
and screwing tremendously — playing 
no notes but notes of preparation ; 
and several gentlemen are gliding along 
the sides of the tables, looking into plate 
after plate with frantic eagerness, the 
expression of their countenances grow- 
ing more and more dismal as they 
meet with everybody's card but their 
own. 

You turn round to take a look at 
the table behind you, and — not being 
in the habit of attending public dinners 
— are somewhat struck by the appear- 
ance of the party on which your eyes 
rest. One of its principal members 
appears to be a little man, with a 
long and rather inflamed face, and 
gray hair brushed bolt upright in front; 
he wears a wisp of black silk round his 
neck, without any stiffener, as an apo- 
logy for a neckerchief, and is addressed 
by his companions by the familiar 
appellation of " Fitz," or some such 
monosyllable. Near him is a stout 
man in a white neckerchief and 
buff waistcoat, with shining dark 
hair, cut very short in front, and a 
great round healthy-looking face, on 
which he studiously preserves a half- 
sentimental simper. Next him, again, 
is a 'large-headed man, with black hair 
and bushy whiskers ; and opposite them 
are two or three others, one of whom 
is a little round-faced person, in a 
dress-stock and blue under-waistcoat. 
There is something peculiar in their 
air and manner, though you could 
hardly describe what it is ; you 
cannot divest yourself of the idea that 
they have come for some other purpose 
than mere eating and drinking. You 
have no time to debate the matter, 
however, for the waiters (who have 
been arranged in lines down the room, 
placing the dishes on table,) retire to 
the lower end ; the dark man in the 
blue coat and bright buttons, who has 
the direction of the music, looks up to 
the gallery, and calls out " band" in a 



very loud voice ; outburst the orchestra, 
up rise the visiters, in march fourteen 
stewards, each with a long wand in his 
hand, like the evil genius in a panto- 
mime ; then the chairman, then the 
titled visiters ; they all make their 
way up the room, as fast as they can, 
bowing, and smiling, and smirking, 
and looking remarkably amiable. The 
applause ceases, grace is said, the clat- 
ter of plates and dishes begins ; and 
every one appears highly gratified, 
either with the presence of the distin- 
guished visiters, or the commencement 
of the anxiously-expected dinner. 

As to the dinner itself — the mere 
dinner — it goes off much the same 
everywhere. Tureens of soup are 
emptied with awful rapidity — waiters 
take plates of turbot away, to get 
lobster-sauce, and bring back plates of 
lobster-sauce without turbot ; people 
who can carve poultry, are great fools 
if they own it, and people who can't, 
have no wish to learn. The knives 
and forks form a pleasing accompani- 
ment to Auber's music, and Auber's 
music would form a pleasing accom- 
paniment to the dinner, if you could 
hear anything besides the cymbals. 
The substantiate disappear — moulds 
of jelly vanish like lightning — hearty 
eaters wipe their foreheads, and appear 
rather overcome with their recent ex- 
i ertions — people who have looked very 
cross hitherto, become remarkably 
| bland, and ask you to take wine in the 
most friendly manner possible — old 
gentlemen direct your attention to the 
ladies' gallery, and take great pains to 
impress you with the fact that the 
charity is always peculiarly favoured 
in this respect — every one appears dis- 
posed to become talkative — and the hum 
of conversation is loud and general. 

" Pray, silence, gentlemen, if you 
please, for Non nobis J" shouts the 
toast-master with stentorian lungs — a 
toast-master's shirt-front, waistcoat, 
and neckerchief, by the by, always 
exhibit three distinct shades of cloudy- 
white. — " Pray, silence, gentlemen, for 
Non nobis /" The singers, whom you 
discover to be no other than the very 
party that excited your curiosity at first 



PUBLIC DINNERS. 



101 






after " pitching" their voices immedi- 
ately begin too-looing most dismally, 
on which the regular old stagers burst 
into occasional cries of — " Sh — Sh — 
waiters ! — Silence, waiters — stand still, 
waiters — keep back, waiters," and 
other exorcisms, delivered in a tone 
of indignant remonstrance. The grace 
is soon concluded, and the company 
resume their seats. The uninitiated 
portion of the guests applaud Non 
nobis as vehemently as if it were a 
capital comic song, greatly to the 
scandal and indignation of the regular 
diners, who immediately attempt to 
quell this sacrilegious approbation, by 
cries of " Hush, hush !" whereupon 
the others, mistaking these sounds for 
hisses, applaud more tumultuously 
than before, and, by way of placing 
their approval beyond the possibility 
of doubt, shout " Encore P* most voci- 
ferously. 

The moment the noise ceases, up 
starts the toast-master : — " Gentlemen, 
charge your glasses, if you please !" 
Decanters having been handed about, 
and glasses filled, the toast-master 
proceeds, in a regular ascending 
scale ; — {( Gentlemen — air — you — all 
charged ? Pray — silence — gentlemen 



— for — the cha- 



The chair- 



man rises, and, after stating that he 
feels it quite unnecessary to preface 
the toast he is about to propose, with 
any observations whatever, wanders 
into a maze of sentences, and flounders 
about in the most extraordinary man- 
ner, presenting a lamentable spectacle 
of mystified humanity, until he arrives 
at the words, " constitutional sovereign 
of these realms," at which elderly 
gentlemen exclaim, " Bravo !" and 
hammer the table tremendously with 
their knife-handles. " Under any cir- 
cumstances, it would give him the 
greatest pride, it would give him the 
greatest pleasure — he might almost 
say, it would afford him satisfaction 
[cheers] to propose that toast. What 
must be his feelings, then, when he 
has the gratification of announcing, 
that he has received her Majesty's 
commands to apply to the Treasurer 
of her Majesty's Household, for her 



Majesty's annual donation of 25?. in 
aid of the funds of this charity !" This 
announcement (which has been regu- 
larly made by every chairman, since 
the first foundation of the charity, 
forty-two years ago) calls forth the 
most vociferous applause ; the toast is 
drunk with a great deal of cheering 
and knocking ; and " God save the 
Queen" is sung by the " professional 
gentlemen;" the unprofessional gentle- 
men joining in the chorus, and giving 
the national anthem an effect which 
the newspapers, with great justice, ' 
describe as " perfectly electrical.'" 

The other " loyal and patriotic " 
toasts having been drunk with all due 
enthusiasm, a comic song having been 
well sung by the gentleman with the 
small neckerchief, and a sentimental 
one by the second of the party, we 
come to the most important toast of 
the evening — " Prosperity to the 
charity." Here again we are com- 
pelled to adopt newspaper phraseo- 
logy, and to express our regret at 
being " precluded from giving even 
the substance of the noble lord's obser- 
vations." Suffice it to say, that the 
speech, which is somewhat of the 
longest, is rapturously received ; and 
the toast having been drunk, the 
stewards (looking more important 
than ever) leave the room, and pre- 
sently return, heading a procession of 
indigent orphans, boys and girls, who 
walk round the room, curtseying, and 
bowing, and treading on each other's 
heels, and looking very much as if 
they would like a glass of wine apiece, 
to the high gratification of the company 
generally, and especially of the lady 
patronesses in the gallery. Exeunt 
children, and re-enter stewards, each 
with a blue plate in his hand. The 
band plays a lively air ; the ma- 
jority of the company put their hands 
in their pockets and look rather 
serious ; and the noise of sovereigns, 
rattling on crockery, is heard from all 
parts of the room. 

After a short interval, occupied in 
singing and toasting, the secretary 
puts on his spectacles, and proceeds to 
read the report and list of subscrip- 



102 



SKETCHES*^ Y BOZ. 



tions, the latter being listened to with 
great attention. " Mr. Smith, one 
guinea — Mr. Tompkins, one guinea — 
Mr. Wilson, one guinea — Mr. Hickson, 
one guinea — Mr. Nixon, one guinea — 
Mr. Charles Nixon, one guinea — [hear, 
hear!] — Mr. James Nixon, one guinea 
— Mr. Thomas Nixon, one pound one I 
[tremendous applause]. Lord Fitz 
Binkle, the chairman of the day 3 in j 
addition to an annual donation of j 
fifteen pounds — thirty guineas [pro- 
longed knocking : several gentlemen ; 
knock the stems off their wine-glasses, 
in the vehemence of their appro- 
bation]. Lady Fitz Binkle, in addition 
to an annual donation of ten pound — 
twenty pound" [protracted knocking 
and shouts of "Bravo!"] The list I 
being at length concluded, the chair- ! 
man rises and proposes the health of ' 
the secretary, than whom he knows i 
no more zealous or estimable indi- j 
vidual. The secretary, in returning ' 
thanks, observes that he knows no 
more excellent individual than the j 
chairman — except the senior officer of i 
the charity, whose health he begs to | 
propose. The senior officer, in return- | 



ing thanks, observes that he knows no 
more worthy man than the secretary 
— except Mr. Walker, the auditor, 
whose health he begs to propose. Mr. 
Walker, in returning thanks, discovers 
some other estimable individual, to 
whom alone the senior officer is in- 
ferior — and so they go on toasting and 
lauding and thanking : the only other 
toast of importance being " The Lady 
Patronesses now present ! " on which 
all the gentlemen turn their faces 
towards the ladies' gallery, shouting 
tremendously ; and little priggish men, 
who have imbibed more Avine than 
usual, kiss their hands and exhibit 
distressing contortions of visage. 

We have protracted our dinner to 
so great a length, that we have hardly 
time to add one word by way of grace. 
We can only entreat our readers not 
to imagine, because we have attempted 
to extract some amusement from a 
charity dinner, that we are at all dis- 
posed to underrate, either the excel- 
lence of the benevolent institutions 
with which London abounds, or the 
estimable motives of those who sup- 
port them. 



THE FIRST OF MAY. 



103 



CHAPTER XX. 



THE FIRST OF MAY. 

" Now ladies, up in the sky-parlour : only once a year, if you please !" 

Young Lady with Bhass Ladle. 



" Sweep — sweep — sw-e-ep! 



Illegal Watchword. 



The first of May ! There is a merry 
freshness in the sound, calling to 
our minds a thousand thoughts of 
all that is pleasant and beautiful in 
nature, in her most delightful form. 
What man is there, over whose mind 
a bright spring morning does not 
exercise a magic influence — carrying 
him back to the days of his childish 
sports, and conjuring up before him 
the old green field with its gently- 
waving trees, where the birds sang as 
he has never heard them since — where 
the butterfly fluttered far more gaily 
than he ever sees him now, in all his 
ramblings — where the sky seemed 
bluer, and the sun shone more brightly 
—where the air blew more freshly 
over greener grass, and sweeter-smell- 
ing flowers — where every thing wore 
a richer and more brilliant hue than 
it is ever dressed in now ! Such are 
the deep feelings of childhood, and 
such are the impressions which every 
lovely object stamps upon its heart ! 
The hardy traveller wanders through 
the maze of thick and pathless woods, 
where the sun's rays never shone, and 
heaven's pure air never played ; he 
stands on the brink of the roaring 
waterfall, and, giddy and bewildered, 
watches the foaming mass as it leaps 
from stone to stone, and from crag to 
crag; he lingers in the fertile plains 
of a land of perpetual sunshine, and 
revels in the luxury of their balmy 
breath. But what are the deep forests, 
or the thundering waters, or the richest 
landscapes that bounteous nature ever 
spread, to charm the eyes, and cap- 
tivate the senses of man, compared 
with the recollection of the old scenes 
of his early youth ? Magic scenes 
indeed ; for the fancies of childhood 



dressed them in colours brighter than 
the rainbow, and almost as fleeting ! 

In former times, spring brought 
with it not only such associations as 
these, connected with the past, but 
sports and games for the present — 
merry dances round rustic pillars, 
adorned with emblems of the season, 
and reared in honour of its coming. 
Where are they now ! Pillars we 
have, but they are no longer rustic 
ones ; and as to dancers, they are 
used to rooms, and lights, and would 
not show well in the open air. Thiuk 
of the immorality, too ! What would 
your sabbath enthusiasts say, to an 
aristocratic ring encircling the Duke 
of York's column in Carlton-terrace— 
a grand poussette of the middle classes, 
round Alderman Waithman's monu- 
ment in Fleet- street, — or a general 
hands-four-round of ten-pound house- 
holders, at the foot of the Obelisk in 
St. George's-fields ? Alas ! romance 
can make no head against the riot act ; 
and pastoral simplicity is not under- 
stood by the police. 

Well ; many years ago we began to 
be a steady and matter-of-fact sort of 
people, and dancing in spring being 
beneath our dignity, we gave it up, 
and in course of time it descended to 
the sweeps — a fall certainly, because, 
though sweeps are very good fellows 
in their way, and moreover very use- 
ful in a civilised community, they are 
not exactly the sort of people to give 
the tone to the little elegances of 
society. The sweeps, however, got 
the dancing to themselves, and they 
kept it up, and handed it down. This 
was a severe blow to the romance of 
spring-time, but, it did not entirely 
destroy it, either ; for a portion of it 



104 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



descended to the sweeps with the 
dancing, and rendered them objects of 
great interest. A mystery hung over 
the sweeps in those days. Legends 
were in existence of wealthy gentle- 
men who had lost children, and who, 
after many years of sorrow and suffer- 
ing, had found them in the character 
of sweeps. • Stories were related of a 
young boy who, having been stolen 
from his parents in his infancy, and 
devoted to the occupation of chimney- 
sweeping, was sent, in the course of 
his professional career, to sweep the 
chimney of his mother's bedroom ; 
and how, being hot and tired when he 
came out of the chimney, he got into 
the bed he had so often slept in as an 
infant, and was discovered and recog- 
nised therein by his mother, who once 
every year of her life, thereafter, 
requested the pleasure of the company 
of every London sweep, at half-past 
one o'clock, to roast beef, plum-pudding, 
porter, and sixpence. 

Such stories as these, and there 
were many such, threw an air of 
mystery round the sweeps, and pro- 
duced for them some of those good 
effects which animals derive from the 
doctrine of the transmigration of souls. 
No one, (except the masters), thought 
of ill-treating a sweep, because no one 
knew who he might be, or what noble- 
man's or gentleman's son he might 
turn out. Chimney- sweeping was, by 
many believers in the marvellous, con- 
sidered as a sort of probationary term, 
at an earlier or later period of which, 
divers young noblemen were to come 
into possession of their rank and 
titles : and the profession was held by 
them in great respect accordingly. 

We remember, in our young days, 
a little sweep about our own age, with 
curly hair and white teeth, whom we 
devoutly and sincerely believed to be 
the lost son and heir of some illus- 
trious personage — an impression which 
was resolved into an unchangeable 
conviction on our infant mind, by the 
subject of our speculations informing 
us, one day, in reply to our question, 
propounded a few moments before his 
ascent to the summit of the kitchen 



chimney, " that he believed he 'd been 
born in the vurkis, but he 'd never 
know'd his father." We felt certain, 
from that time forth, that he would 
one day be owned by a lord ; and 
we never heard the church-bells ring, 
or saw a flag hoisted in the neighbour- 
hood, without thinking that the happy 
event had at last occurred, and that 
his long-lost parent had arrived in a 
coach and six, to take him home to 
Grosvenor-square. He never came, 
however ; and, at the present moment, 
the young gentleman in question is 
settled down as a master sweep in the 
neighbourhood of Battle-bridge, his 
distinguishing characteristics being a 
decided antipathy to washing himself, 
and the possession of a pah' of legs 
very inadequate to the support of his 
unwieldy and corpulent body. 

The romance of spring having gone 
out before our time, we were fain to 
console ourselves as we best could with 
the uncertainty that enveloped the 
birth and parentage of its attendant 
dancers, the sweeps ; and we did 
console ourselves with it, for many 
years. But, even this wretched source 
of comfort received a shock, from 
which it has never recovered — a 
shock, which has been, in reality, its 
death-blow. We could not disguise 
from ourselves the fact that whole 
families of sweeps were regularly 
born of sweeps, in the rural districts 
of Somers Town and Camden Town 
— that the eldest son succeeded to the 
father's business, that the other 
branches assisted him therein, and 
commenced on their own account ; 
that their children again, were edu- 
cated to the profession ; and that 
about their identity there could be no 
mistake whatever. We could not be 
blind, we say, to this melancholy truth, 
but we could not bring ourselves to 
admit it, nevertheless, and we lived 
on for some years in a state of volun- 
tary ignorance. We were roused 
from our pleasant slumber by certain 
dark insinuations thrown out by a 
friend of ours, to the effect that children 
in the lower ranks of life were begin- 
ning to choose chimney-sweeping as 



THE FIRST OF MAY. 



105 



their particular walk ; that applications 
had been made by various boys to the 
constituted authorities, to allow them 
to pursue the object of their ambition 
with the full concurrence and sanction 
of the law ; that the affair, in short, 
was becoming one of mere legal con- 
tract. We turned a deaf ear to these 
rumours at first, but slowly and surely 
they stole upon us. Month after 
month, week after week, nay, day 
after day, at last, did we meet with 
accounts of similar applications. The 
veil was removed, all mystery was at 
an end, and chimney-sweeping had 
become a favourite and chosen pursuit. 
There is no longer any occasion to 
steal boys ; for boys flock in crowds to 
bind themselves. The romance of the 
trade has fled, and the chimney- 
sweeper of the present day, is no more 
like unto him of thirty years ago, 
than is a Fleet-street pickpocket to a 
Spanish brigand, or Paul Pry to Caleb 
Williams. 

This gradual decay and disuse of 
the practice of leading noble youths 
into captivity, and compelling them 
to ascend chimneys, was a severe blow, 
if we may so speak, to the romance 
of chimney-sweeping, and to the 
romance of spring at the same time. 
But even this was not all, for some 
few years ago the dancing on May- 
day began to decline ; small sweeps 
were observed to congregate in twos 
or threes, unsupported by a " green," 
with no " My Lord " to act as master 
of the ceremonies, and no "My Lady" 
to preside over the exchequer. Even 
in companies where there was a 
"green " it was an absolute nothing — 
a mere sprout — and the instrumental 
accompaniments rarely extended be- 
yond the shovels and a set of Pan- 
pipes, better known to the many, as a 
" mouth-organ." 

These were signs of the times, por- 
tentous omens of a coming change ; 
and what was the result which they 
shadowed forth % Why, the master 
sweeps, influenced by a restless spirit 
of innovation, actually interposed their 
authority, in opposition to the dancing, 
and substituted a dinner — an anniver- 



sary dinner at White Conduit House 
— where clean faces appeared in lieu 
of black ones smeared with rose pink ; 
and knee cords and tops superseded 
nankeen drawers and rosetted shoes. 

Gentlemen who were in the habit 
of riding shy horses ; and steady- 
going people, who have no vagrancy in 
their souls, lauded this alteration to 
the skies, and the conduct of the 
master sweeps was described as beyond 
the reach of praise. But how stands 
the real fact \ Let any man deny, if 
he can, that when the cloth had been 
removed, fresh pots and pipes laid 
upon the table, and the customary 
loyal and patriotic toasts proposed, 
the celebrated Mr. Sluffen, of Adam- 
and-Eve-court, whose authority not 
the most malignant of our opponents 
can call in question, expressed him- 
self in a manner following : " That 
now he 'd cotcht the cheerman's hi, he 
vished he might be jolly veil blessed, 
if he worn't a goin' to have his innings, 
vich he vould say these here obserwa- 
shuns — that how some mischeevu& 
coves as know'd nuffin about the con- 
sarn, had tried to sit people agin the 
mas'r swips, and take the shine out o' 
their bis'nes, and the bread out o' the 
traps o' their preshus kids, by a makin' 
o' this here remark, as chimblies 
could be as veil svept by 'sheenery as 
by boys ; and that the makin' use o' 
boys for that there purpuss vos baba- 
reous ; vereas, he 'ad been a chummy 
— he begged the cheerman's parding 
for usin' such a wulgar hexpression — 
more nor thirty year — he might say 
he 'd been born in a chimbley — and 
he know'd uncommon veil as 'sheen- 
ery vos vus nor o' no use : and as to 
kerhewelty to the boys, every body in 
the chimbley line know'd as veil as he 
did, that they liked the climbin' better 
nor nuffin as vos." From this day, we 
date the total fall of the last lingering 
remnant of May-day dancing, among 
the elite of the profession : and from 
this period we commence a new era 
in that portion of our spring associ- 
ations, which relates to the 1 st of May. 

We are aware that the unthinking 
part of the population will meet us 



106 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



here, with the assertion, that dancing 
on May-day still continues — that 
" greens " are annually seen to roll 
along the streets — that youths in the 
garb of clowns, precede them, giving 
vent to the ebullitions of their sportive 
fancies ; and that lords and ladies 
follow in their wake- 
Granted. We are ready to acknow- 
ledge that in outward show, these pro- 
cessions have greatly improved : we 
do not deny the introduction of solos 
on the drum ; we will even go so far 
as to admit an occasional fantasia on 
the triangle, but here our admissions 
end. We positively deny that the 
sweeps have art or part in these pro- 
ceedings. We distinctly charge the 
dustmen with throwing what they 
ought to clear away, into the eyes of 
the public. We accuse scavengers, 
brickmakers, and gentlemen who de- 
vote their energies to the coster- 
mongering line, with obtaining money 
once a-year, under false pretences. 
We cling with peculiar fondness to 
the custom of days gone by, and have 
shut out conviction as long as we 
could, but it has forced itself upon us ; 
and we now proclaim to a deluded 
public, that the May-day dancers are 
not sweeps. The size of them, alone, 
is sufficient to repudiate the idea. It 
is a notorious fact that the widely- 
spread taste for register-stoves has 
materially increased the demand for 
small boys ; whereas the men, who, 
under a fictitious character, dance 
about the streets on the first of May 
nowadays, would be a tight fit in a 
kitchen flue, to say nothing of the 
parlour. This is strong presumptive 
evidence, but we have positive proof 
— the evidence of our own senses. 
And here is our testimony. 

Upon the morning of the second of 
the merry month of May, in the year 
of our Lord one thousand eight hun- 
dred and thirty-six, we went out for a 
stroll, with a kind of forlorn hope of 
seeing something or other which 
might induce us to believe that it 
was really spring, and not Christmas. 
After wandering as far as Copenhagen 
House, without meeting any thing 



calculated to dispel our impression 
that there was a mistake in the alma- 
nacks, we turned back down Maiden- 
lane, with the intention of passing 
through the extensive colony lying 
between it and Battle-bridge, which is 
inhabited by proprietors of donkey- 
carts, boilers of horseflesh, makers 
of tiles, and sifters of cinders ; 
through which colony we should have 
passed, without stoppage or interrup- 
tion, if a little crowd gathered round 
a shed had not attracted our attention, 
and induced us to pause. 

When we say a " shed," we do not 
mean the conservatory sort of build- 
ing, which, according to the old song, 
Love tenanted when he was a young 
man, but a wooden house with windows 
stuffed with rags and paper, and a 
small yard at the side, with one dust- 
cart, two baskets, a few shovels, and 
little heaps of cinders, and fragments 
of china and tiles, scattered about it. 
Before this inviting spot we paused ; 
and the longer we looked, the more 
we wondered what exciting circum- 
stance it could be, that induced the 
foremost members of the crowd to 
flatten their noses against the parlour 
window, in the vain hope of catching a 
glimpse of what was going on inside. 
After staring vacantly about us for 
some minutes, we appealed, touching 
the cause of this assemblage, to a gen- 
tleman in a suit of tarpauling, who 
was smoking his pipe on our right 
hand ; but as the only answer we 
obtained was a playful inquiry whether 
our mother had disposed of her 
mangle, we determined to await the 
issue in silence. 

Judge of our virtuous indignation, 
when the street-door of the shed 
opened, and a party emerged there- 
from, clad in the costume and emu- 
lating the appearance, of May-day 
sweeps ! 

The first person who appeared was 
" my lord," habited in a blue coat and 
bright buttons, with gilt paper tacked 
over the seams, yellow knee-breeches, 
pink cotton stockings, and shoes ; a 
cocked hat, ornamented with shreds 
of various-coloured paper, on his head, 






THE FIRST OF MAY. 



107 



bouquet, the size of a prize cauli- 
flower in his button-hole, a long Bel- 
cher handkerchief in his right hand, 
and a thin cane in his left. A murmur 
of applause ran through the crowd 
(which was chiefly composed of his 
lordship's personal friends), when this 
graceful figure made his appearance, 
which swelled into a burst of applause 
as his fair partner in the dance 
bounded forth to join him. Her lady- 
ship was attired in pink crape over 
bed-furniture, with a low body and 
short sleeves. The symmetry of her 
ankles was partially concealed by a 
very perceptible pair of frilled trou- 
sers; and the inconvenience which 
might have resulted from the circum- 
stance of her white satin shoes being a 
few sizes too large, was obviated by 
their being firmly attached to her legs 
with strong tape sandals. 

Her head was ornamented with a 
profusion of artificial flowers ; and 
in her hand she bore a larfj-e brass 
ladle, wherein to receive what she 
figuratively denominated " the tin." 
The other characters were a young 
gentleman in girl's clothes and a 
widow's cap ; two clowns who walked 
upon their hands in the mud, to the 
immeasurable delight of all the spec- 



tators ; a man with a drum ; another 
man with a flageolet ; a dirty woman 
in a large shawl, with a box under her 
arm for the money, — and last, though 
not least, the "green," animated by 
no less a personage than our identical 
friend in the tarpauling suit. 

The man hammered away at the 
drum, the flageolet squeaked, the shov- 
els rattled, the " green " rolled about, 
pitching first on one side and then on 
the other ; my lady threw her right 
foot over her left ankle, and her left 
foot over her right ankle, alternately f 
my lord ran a few paces forward, 
and butted at the " green," and then 
a few paces backward upon the toes 
of the crowd, and then went to the 
right, and then to the left, and then 
dodged my lady round the " green ;" 
and finally drew her arm through his, 
and called upon the boys to shout, 
which they did lustily — for this was 
the dancing. 

We passed the same group, acci- 
dentally, in the evening. We never 
saw a ** green " so drunk, a lord so 
quarrelsome (no : not even in the 
house of peers after dinner), a pair 
of clowns so melancholy, a lady so 
muddy, or a party so miserable. 

How has May-day decayed I 



108 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



BROKERS' AND MARINE-STORE SHOPS. 



When we affirm that brokers' shops 
are strange places, and that if an 
authentic history of their contents 
could be procured, it would furnish 
many a page of amusement, and many 
a melancholy tale, it is necessary to 
explain the class of shops to which we 
allude. Perhaps when we make use of 
the term " Brokers' Shop," the minds 
of our readers will at once picture 
large, handsome warehouses, exhibiting 
a long perspective of French-polished 
dining-tables, rosewood chiffoniers, and 
mahogany wash-hand-stands, with an 
occasional vista of a four-post bedstead 
and hangings, and an appropriate fore- 
ground of dining-room chairs. Perhaps 
they will imagine that we mean an 
humble class of second-hand furniture 
repositories. Their imagination will 
then naturally lead them to that street 
at the back of Long-acre, which is 
composed almost entirely of brokers' 
shops ; where you walk through groves 
of deceitful, showy-looking furniture, 
and where the prospect is occasionally 
enlivened by a bright red, blue, and 
yellow hearth-rug, embellished with 
the pleasing device of a mail-coach at 
full speed, or a strange animal, sup- 
posed to have been originally intended 
for a dog, with a mass of worsted-work 
in his mouth, which conjecture has 
likened to a basket of flowers. 

This, by the by, is a tempting article 
to young wives in the humbler ranks 
of life, who have a first-floor front 
to furnish — they are lost in admira- 
tion, and hardly know which to admire 
most. The dog is very beautiful, but 
they have a dog already on the best 
tea-tray, and two more on the mantel- 
piece. Then, there is something so 
genteel about that mail-coach ; and the 
passengers outside (who are all hat) 
give it such an air of reality ! 

The goods here are adapted to the 
taste, or rather to the means, of cheap 



purchasers. There are some of the 
most beautiful looking Pembroke tables 
that were ever beheld : the wood as 
green as the trees in the Park, and the 
leaves almost as certain to fall off in 
the course of a year. There is also a 
most extensive assortment of tent and 
turn-up bedsteads, made of stained 
wood ; and innumerable specimens of 
that base imposition on society — a sofa 
bedstead. 

A turn-up bedstead is a blunt, 
honest piece of furniture ; it may 
be slightly disguised with a sham 
drawer ; and sometimes a mad at- 
tempt is even made to pass it off for a 
bookcase ; ornament it as you will, 
however, the turn-up bedstead seems 
to defy disguise, and to insist on having 
it distinctly understood that he is a 
turn-up bedstead, and nothing else — 
that he is indispensably necessary, and 
that being so useful, he disdains to be 
ornamental. 

How different is the demeanour of a 
sofa bedstead ! Ashamed of its real 
use, it strives to appear an article of 
luxury and gentility — an attempt in 
which it miserably fails. It has neither 
the respectability of a sofa, nor the vir- 
tues of a bed ; every man who keeps a 
sofa bedstead in his house, becomes a 
party to a wilful and designing fraud 
— we question whether you could insult 
him more, than by insinuating that you 
entertain the least suspicion of its real 
use. 

To return from this digression, we 
beg to say, that neither of these classes 
of brokers' shops, forms the subject of 
this sketch. The shops to which we 
advert, are immeasurably inferior to 
those on whose outward appearance 
we have slightly touched. Our readers 
must often have observed in some by- 
street, in a poor neighbourhood, a small 
| dirty shop, exposing for sale the most 
J extraordinary and confused jumble of 



BROKERS' AND MARINE-STORE SHOPS. 



109 



old, worn-out, wretched articles, that 
can well be imagined. Our wonder at 
their ever having been bought, is only 
to be equalled by our astonishment at 
the idea of their ever being sold again. 
On a board, at the side of the door, are 
placed about twenty books — all odd 
volumes ; and as many wine-glasses — 
all different patterns; several locks, an 
old earthenware pan, full of rusty keys; 
two or three gaudy chimney-ornaments 
— cracked, of course ; the remains of a 
lustre, without any drops ; a round frame 
like a capital 0, which has once held a 
mirror ; a flute, complete with the ex- 
ception of the middle joint ; a pair of 
curling-irons ; and a tinder-box. In 
front of the shop-window, are ranged 
some half-dozen high-backed chairs, 
with spinal complaints and wasted legs; 
a corner cupboard ; two or three very 
tlark mahogany tables with flaps like 
mathematical problems ; some pickle- 
jars, some surgeons' ditto, with gilt 
labels and without stoppers ; an un- 
framed portrait of some lady who 
flourished about the beginning of the 
thirteenth century, by an artist who 
never flourished at all ; an incalculable 
host of miscellanies of every description, 
including bottles and cabinets, rags and 
bones, fenders and street-door knock- 
ers, fire-irons, wearing-apparel and 
bedding, a hall-lamp, and a room-door. 
Imagine, in addition to this incongruous 
mass, a black doll in a white frock, 
with two faces — one looking up the 
street, and the other looking down, 
swinging over the door ; a board with 
the squeezed-up inscription " Dealer in 
marine stores," in lanky white letters, 
whose height is strangely out of propor- 
tion to their width ; and you have before 
you precisely the kind of shop to which 
we wish to direct your attention. 

Although the same heterogeneous 
mixture of things will be found at all 
these places, it is curious to observe how 
truly and accurately some of the minor 
articles which are exposed for sale — 
articles of wearing-apparel, for instance 
— mark the character of the neigh- 
bourhood. Take Drury-lane and Co- 
vent-garden for example. 

This is essentially a theatrical neigh- 



bourhood. There is not a potboy in 
the vicinity who is not, to a greater 
or less extent, a dramatic character. 
The errand-boys and chandler's-shop- 
keepers' sons, are all stage-struck : 
they " get up " plays in back kitchens 
hired for the purpose, and will stand 
before a shop-window for hours, con- 
templating a great staring portrait of 
Mr. somebody or other, of the Royal 
Coburg Theatre, "as he appeared in 
the character of Tongo the Denounced." 
The consequence is, that there is not a 
marine-store shop in the neighbour- 
hood, which does not exhibit for sale 
some faded articles of dramatic finery, 
such as three or four pairs of soiled 
buff boots with turn-over red tops, 
heretofore worn by a u fourth robber," 
or " fifth mob;" a pair of rusty broad- 
swords, a few gauntlets, and certain 
resplendent ornaments, which, if they 
were yellow instead of white, might be 
taken for insurance plates of the Sun 
Fire-office. There are several of these 
shops in the narrow streets and dirty 
courts, of which there are so many 
near the national theatres, and they all 
have tempting goods of this descrip- 
tion, with the addition, perhaps, of a 
lady's pink dress covered with spangles ; 
white wreaths, stage shoes, and a tiara 
like a tin lamp reflector. They have 
been purchased of some wretched 
supernumeraries, or sixth-rate actors, 
and are now offered for the benefit of 
the rising generation, who, on condition 
of making certain weekly payments, 
amounting in the whole to about ten 
times their value, may avail them- 
selves of such desirable bargains. 

Let us take a very different quarter, 
and apply it to the same test. Look at 
a marine-store dealer's, in that reser- 
voir of dirt, drunkenness, and drabs : 
thieves, oysters, baked potatoes, and 
pickled salmon — Ratcliff-highway. 
Here, the wearing-apparel is all nau- 
tical. Rough blue jackets, with mother- 
of-pearl buttons, oil-skin hats, coarse 
checked shirts, and large canvas 
trousers that look as if they were 
made for a pair of bodies instead of 
a pair of legs, are the staple commo- 
dities. Then, there are large bunches of 



110 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



cotton pocket-handkerchiefs, in colour 
and pattern unlike any, one ever saw 
before, with the exception of those on 
the backs of the three young ladies 
without bonnets who passed just 
now. The furniture is much the same 
as elsewhere, with the addition of one 
or two models of ships, and some old 
prints of naval engagements in still 
older frames. In the window, are a 
few compasses, a small tray containing 
silver watches in clumsy thick cases ; 
and tobacco-boxes, the lid of each orna- 
mented with a ship, or an anchor, or 
some such trophy. A sailor generally 
pawns or sells all he has before he has 
been long ashore, and if he does not, 
some favoured companion kindly saves 
him the trouble. In either case, it is 
an even chance that he afterwards 
unconsciously repurchases the same 
things at a higher price than he gave 
for them at first. 

Again : pay a visit with a similar 
object, to a part of London, as unlike 
both of these as they are to each other. 
Cross over to the Surrey side, and look 
at such shops of this description as are 
to be found near the King's Bench 
prison, and in " the Rules." How dif- 
ferent, and how strikingly illustrative 
of the decay of some of the unfortunate 
residents in this part of the metropolis ! 
Imprisonment and neglect have done 
their work. There is contamination in 



the profligate denizens of a debtor's 
prison ; old friends have fallen off; the 
recollection of former prosperity lias 
passed away ; and with it all thoughts 
for the past, all care for the future. 
First, watches and rings, then cloaks, 
coats, and all the more expensive 
articles of dress, have found then' way 
to the pawnbroker's. That miserable 
resource has failed at last, and the sale 
of some trifling article at one of these 
shops, has been the only mode left of 
raising a shilling or two, to meet the 
urgent demands of the moment. 
Dressing-cases and writing-desks, too 
old to pawn but too good to keep ; 
guns, fishing-rods, musical instruments, 
all in the same condition ; have first 
been sold, and the sacrifice has been 
but slightly felt. But, hunger must be 
allayed, and what has already become 
a habit, is easily resorted to, when an 
emergency arises. Light articles of 
clothing, first of the ruined man, then 
of his wife, at last of their children, 
even of the youngest, have been parted 
with, piecemeal. There they are, thrown 
carelessly together until a purchaser 
presents himself, old, and patched and 
repaired, it is true ; but the make and 
materials tell of better days ; and the 
older they are, the greater the misery 
and destitution of those whom they 
once adorned. 



GIN-SHOPS. 



in 



CHAPTER XXII. 



It is a remarkable circumstance, that 
different trades appear to partake of 
the disease to which elephants and 
dogs are especially liable, and to run 
stark, staring, raving mad, periodically. 
The great distinction between the 
animals and the trades, is, that the 
former run mad with a certain degree 
of propriety — they are very regular in 
their irregularities. We know the 
period at which the emergency will 
arise, and provide against it accord- 
ingly. If an elephant run mad, we are 
all ready for him — kill or cure — pills or 
bullets — calomel in conserve of roses, 
or lead in a musket-barrel. If a dog 
happen to look unpleasantly warm in 
the summer months, and to trot about 
the shady side of the streets with a 
quarter of a yard of tongue hanging- 
out of his mouth, a thick leather muzzle, 
which has been previously prepared in 
compliance with the thoughtful injunc- 
tions of the Legislature, is instantly 
clapped over his head, by way of making 
him cooler, and he either looks remark- 
ably unhappy for the next six weeks, or 
becomes legally insane, and goes mad, 
as it were, by act of Parliament. But 
these trades are as eccentric as comets; 
nay, worse, for no one can calculate on 
the recurrence of the strange appear- 
ances which betoken the disease. 
Moreover, the contagion is general, 
and the quickness with which it diffuses 
itself, almost incredible. 

We will cite two or three cases in 
illustration of our meaning. Six or 
eight years ago, the epidemic began to 
display itself among the linen-drapers 
and haberdashers. The primary symp- 
toms were an inordinate love of plate- 
glass, and a passion for gas-lights and 
gilding. The disease gradually pro- 
gressed, and at last attained a fearful 
height. Quiet dusty old shops in dif- 
ferent parts of town, were pulled down; 
spacious premises with stuccoed fronts 



and gold letters, were erected instead; 
floors, were covered with Turkey car- 
pets ; roofs, supported by massive 
pillars ; doors, knocked into windows; 
a dozen squares of glass into one; one 
shopman into a dozen ; and there is no 
knowing what would have been done, 
if it had not been fortunately disco- 
vered, just in time, that the Commis- 
sioners of Bankrupt were as competent 
to decide such cases as the Commis- 
sioners of Lunacy, and that a little 
confinement and gentle examination 
did wonders. The disease abated. It 
died away. A year or two of com- 
parative tranquillity ensued. Suddenly 
it burst out again among the chemists; 
the symptoms were the same, with the 
addition of a strong desire to stick the 
royal arms over the shop-door, and a 
great rage for mahogany, varnish, and 
expensive floor-cloth. Then, the hosiers 
were infected, and began to pull down 
their shop-fronts with frantic reckless- 
ness. The mania again died away, and 
the public began to congratulate them- 
selves on its entire disappearance, 
when it burst forth with ten-fold vio- 
lence among the publicans, and keepers 
of " wine- vaults." From that moment 
it has spread among them with unpre- 
cedented rapidity, exhibiting a con- 
catenation of all the previous symptoms ; 
onward it has rushed to every part 
of town, knocking down all the old 
public-houses, and depositing splendid 
mansions, stone balustrades, rosewood 
fittings, immense lamps, and illuminated 
clocks, at the corner of every street. 

The extensive scale on which these 
places are established, and the ostenta- 
tious manner in which the business of 
even the smallest among them is 
divided into branches, is amusing. A 
handsome plate of ground glass in one 
door directs you "To the Counting- 
house;" another to the " Bottle Depart- 
ment ; " a third to the " Wholesale 



112 



SKETCHES BY BOZ 



Department;" a fourth, to "The Wine 
Promenade ; " and so forth, until we 
are in daily expectation of meeting 
with a " Brandy Bell," or a " Whiskey 
Entrance." Then, ingenuity is ex- 
hausted in devising attractive titles for 
the different descriptions of gin ; and 
the dram-drinking portion of the com- 
munity as they gaze upon the gigantic 
black and white announcements, which 
are only to be equalled in size by the 
figures beneath them, are left in a state 
of pleasing hesitation between " The 
Cream of the Valley," " The Out and 
Out," " The No Mistake," " The Good 
for Mixing," " The real Knock-me- 
down," " The celebrated Butter Gin," 
" The regular Flare-up," and a dozen 
other, equally inviting and wholesome 
liqueurs. Although places of this 
description are to be met with in every 
second street, they are invariably 
numerous and splendid in precise pro- 
portion to the dirt and poverty of the 
surrounding neighbourhood. The gin- 
shops in and near Drury-lane,Holborn, 
St. Giles's, Covent-garden, and Clare- 
market, are the handsomest in London. 
There is more of filth and squalid 
misery near those great thoroughfares 
than in any part of this mighty city. 

We will endeavour to sketch the bar 
of a large gin-shop, and its ordinary 
customers, for the edification of such 
of our readers as may not have had 
opportunities of observing such scenes ; 
and on the chance of finding one well 
suited to our purpose, we will make 
for Drury-lane, through the narrow 
streets and dirty courts which divide 
it from Oxford-street,, and that clas- 
sical spot adjoining the brewery at 
the bottom of Tottenham-court-road, 
best known to the initiated as the 
« Rookery." 

The filthy and miserable appearance 
of this part of London can hardly be 
imagined by those (and there are many 
such) who have not witnessed it. 
Wretched houses with broken windows 
patched with rags and paper : every 
room let out to a different family, 
and in many instances to two or even 
three — fruit and " sweet-stuff " manu-, 
facturers in the cellars, barbers and 



red-herring venders in the front par- 
lours, cobblers in the back ; a bird- 
fancier in the first floor, three 
families on the second, starvation in 
the attics, Irishmen in the passage, a 
" musician " in the front kitchen, and 
a charwoman and five hungry children 
in the back one — filth everywhere — 
a gutter before the houses and a 
drain behind — clothes drying, and slops 
emptying, from the windows ; girls of 
fourteen or fifteen, with matted hair, 
walking about barefoot, and in white 
great-coats, almost their only covering; 
boys of all ages, in coats of all sizes 
and no coats at all ; men and women, 
in every variety of scanty and dirty 
apparel, lounging, scolding, drinking, 
smoking, squabbling, fighting, and 
swearing. 

You turn the corner. What a change! 
All is light and brilliancy. The hum 
of many voices issues from that splen- 
did gin-shop which forms the com- 
mencement of the two streets opposite; 
and the gay building with the fantas- 
tically ornamented parapet, the illu- 
minated clock, the plate-glass windows 
surrounded by stucco rosettes, and its 
profusion of gas-lights in richly-gilt 
burners, is perfectly dazzling when 
contrasted with the darkness and dirt 
we have just left. The interior is even 
gayer than the exterior. A bar of 
French-polished mahogany, elegantly 
carved, extends the whole width of the 
place ; and there are two side-aisles of 
great casks, painted green and gold, 
enclosed within a light brass rail, and 
bearing such inscriptions, as " Old 
Tom, 549 ;" " Young Tom, 360 ;" 
"Samson, 1421" — the figures agree- 
ing, we presume, with " gallons," 
understand. Beyond the bar is a 
lofty and spacious saloon, full of the 
same enticing vessels, with a gallery 
running round it, equally well fur- 
nished. On the counter, in addition 
to the usual spirit apparatus, are two 
or three little baskets of cakes and 
biscuits, which are carefully secured 
at top with wicker-work, to prevent 
their contents being unlawfully 
abstracted. Behind it, are two 
showily-dressed damsels with large 



GIN-SHOPS. 



113 



necklaces, dispensing the spirits and 
a compounds." They are assisted by 
the ostensible proprietor of the con- 
cern, a stout coarse fellow in a fur 
cap, put on very much on one side to 
give him a knowing air, and to dis- 
play his sandy whiskers to the best 
advantage. 

The two old washerwomen, who are 
seated on the little bench to the left of 
the bar, are rather overcome by the 
head-dresses and haughty demeanour 
of the young ladies who officiate. 
They receive their half-quartern of 
gin and peppermint, with considerable 
deference, prefacing a request for " one 
of them soft biscuits," with a " Jist 
be good enough, ma'am." They are 
quite astonished at the impudent air of 
the young fellow in a brown coat and 
bright buttons, who, ushering in his 
two companions, and walking up to the 
bar in as careless a manner as if he 
had been used to green and gold orna- 
ments all his life, winks at one of the 
young ladies with singular coolness, 
and calls for a " kervorten and a 
three-out-glass," just as if the place 
were his own. " Gin for you, sir % " 
says the young lady when she has 
drawn it : carefully looking every way 
but the right one, to show that the 
wink had no effect upon her. " For 
me, Mary, my dear," replies the gen- 
tleman in brown. " My name an't 
Mary as it happens," says the young 
girl, rather relaxing as she delivers 
the change. K Well, if it an't, it 
ought to be," responds the irresist- 
ible one ; " all the Marys as ever 
I see, was handsome gals." Here 
the young lady, not precisely remem- 
bering how blushes are managed in 
such cases, abruptly ends the flirtation 
by addressing the female in the faded 
feathers who has just entered, and 
who, after stating explicitly, to pre- 
vent any subsequent misunderstand- 
ing, that " this gentleman pays," calls 
for " a glass of port wine and a bit of 
sugar." 

Those two old men who came in 
" just to have a drain," finished their 
third quartern a few seconds ago ; 
they have made themselves crying 

No. 180. 



drunk; and the fat comfortable-looking 
elderly women, who had " a glass of 
rum srub" each, having chimed in 
with their complaints on the hardness 
of the times, one of the women has 
agreed to stand a glass round, jocularly 
observing that " grief never mended 
no broken bones, and as good people 's 
wery scarce, what I says is, make the 
most on 'em, and that's all about it !" 
a sentiment which appears to afford 
unlimited satisfaction to those who 
have nothing to pay. • 

It is growing late, and the throng of 
men, women, and children, who have 
been constantly going in and out, 
dwindles down to two or three occa- 
sional stragglers — cold, wretched- 
looking creatures, in the last stage of 
emaciation and disease. The knot of 
Irish labourers at the lower end of the 
place, who have been alternately 
shaking hands with, and threatening 
the life of each other, for the last hour, 
become furious in their disputes, and 
finding it impossible to silence one 
man, who is particularly anxious to 
adjust the difference, they resort to 
the expedient of knocking him down 
and jumping on him afterwards. The 
man in the fur cap, and the potboy 
rush out ; a scene of riot and con- 
fusion ensues ; half the Irishmen get 
shut out, and the other half get shut 
in ; the potboy is knocked among the 
tubs in no time ; the landlord hits 
every body, and every body hits the 
landlord ; the barmaids scream ; the 
police come in ; the rest is-a confused 
mixture of arms, legs, staves, torn 
coats, shouting, and struggling. Some 
of the party are borne off to the 
station-house, and the remainder slink 
home to beat their wives for com- 
plaining, and kick the children for 
daring to be hungry. 

We have sketched this subject very 
slightly, not only because our limits 
compel us to do so, but because, if it 
were pursued farther, it would be 
painful and repulsive. Well-disposed 
gentlemen, and charitable ladies, 
would alike turn with coldness and 
disgust from a description of the 
drunken besotted men, and wretched 
8 



114 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



broken-down miserable women, who 
form no inconsiderable portion of the 
frequenters of these haunts ; forget- 
ting, in the pleasant consciousness of 
their own rectitude, the poverty of the 
one, and the temptation of the other. 
Gin-drinking is a great vice in England, 
but wretchedness and dirt are a greater ; 
and I'util you improve the homes of 
the )OV. or persuade a half-famished 
wretch not to seek relief in the tem- 
porary oblivion of his own misery, 



I with the pittance which, divided 
j among his family, would furnish a 
morsel of bread for each, gin-shops 
will increase in number and splendour. 
If Temperance Societies would suggest 
an antidote against hunger, filth, and 
foul air, or could establish dispensaries 
for the gratuitous distribution of 
bottles of Lethe-water, gin-palaces 
would be numbered among the things 
that were. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



THE PAWNBROKER'S SHOP. 



Op the numerous receptacles for 
misery and distress with which the 
streets of London unhappily abound, 
there are, perhaps, none which present 
such striking scenes as the pawn- 
brokers' shops. The very nature and 
description of these places occasions 
their being but little known, except 
to the unfortunate beings whose pro- 
fligacy or misfortune drives them to 
seek the temporary relief they offer. 
The subject may appear, at first sight, 
to be any thing but an inviting one, 
but we venture on it nevertheless, in 
the hope that, as far as the limits of 
our present paper are concerned, it 
will present nothing to disgust, even 
the most fastidious reader. 

There are some pawnbrokers' shops 
of a very superior description. There 
are grades in pawning as in every thing 
else, and distinctions must be observed 
even in poverty. The aristocratic 
Spanish cloak and the plebeian calico 
shirt, the silver fork and the flat iron, 
the muslin cravat and the Belcher 
neckerchief, would but ill assort to- 
gether ; so, the better sort of pawn- 
broker calls himself a silversmith, and 
decorates his shop with handsome 
trinkets and expensive jewellery, while 
the more humble money-lender boldly 



advertises his calling, and invites obser- 
vation. It is with pawnbrokers' shops 
of the latter class, that we have to do. 
We have selected one for our purpose, 
and will endeavour to describe it. 

The pawnbroker's shop is situated 
near Drury-lane, at the corner of a 
court, which affords a side entrance 
for the accommodation of such cus- 
tomers as may be desirous of avoiding 
the observation of the passers-by, or 
the chance of recognition in the public 
street. It is a low, dirty-looking, dusty 
shop, the door of which stands always 
doubtfully, a little way open : half 
inviting, half repelling the hesitating 
visiter, who, if he be as yet uninitiated, 
examines one of the old garnet brooches 
in the window for a minute or two with 
affected eagerness, as if he contem- 
plated making a purchase ; and then 
looking cautiously round to ascertain 
that no one watches him, hastily slinks 
in : the door closing of itself after him, 
to just its former width. The shop 
front and the window-frames bear 
evident marks of having been once 
painted ; but, what the colour was 
originally, or at what date it was pro- 
bably laid on, are at this remote period 
questions which may be asked, but 
cannot be answered. Tradition states 



THE PAWNBROKER'S SHOP. 



115 



that the transparency in the front door, 
which displays at night three red balls 
on a blue ground, once bore also, 
inscribed in graceful waves, the words 
" Money advanced on plate, jewels, 
wearing apparel, and every description 
of property," but a few illegible hiero- 
glyphics are all that now remain to 
attest the fact. The plate and jewels 
would seem to have disappeared, toge- 
ther with the announcement, for the 
articles of stock, which are displayed 
in some profusion in the window, do 
not include any very valuable luxuries 
of either kind. A few old china cups ; 
some modern vases, adorned with paltry 
paintings of three Spanish cavaliers 
playing three Spanish guitars ; or a 
party of boors carousing : each boor 
with one leg painfully elevated in the 
air, by way of expressing his perfect 
freedom and gaiety ; several sets of 
chessmen, two or three flutes, a few 
fiddles, a round-eyed portrait staring 
in astonishment from a very dark 
ground ; some gaudily-bound prayer- 
books and testaments, two rows of 
silver watches quite as clumsy and 
almost as large as Ferguson's first; 
numerous old-fashioned table and tea 
spoons, displayed, fan-like, in half- 
dozens; strings of coral with great 
broad gilt snaps ; cards of rings and 
brooches, fastened and labelled sepa- 
rately, like the insects in the British 
Museum ; cheap silver penholders and 
snuff-boxes, with a masonic star, com- 
plete the jewellery department ; while 
five or six beds in smeary clouded 
ticks, strings of blankets and sheets, 
silk and cotton handkerchiefs, and 
wearing apparel of every description, 
form the more useful, though even less 
ornamental, part, of the articles ex- 
posed for sale. An extensive collection 
of planes, chisels, saws, and other car- 
penters' tools, which have been pledged, 
and never redeemed, form the fore- 
ground of the picture ; while the large 
frames full of ticketed bundles, which 
are dimly seen through the dirty case- 
ment up stairs— the squalid neighbour- 
hood — the adjoining houses, straggling, 
shrunken, and rotten, with one or 
two filthy, unwholesome-looking heads, 



thrust out of every window, and old 
red pans and stunted plants exposed 
on the tottering parapets, to-the mani- 
fest hazard of the heads of the passers- 
by — the noisy men loitering under the 
archway at the corner of the court, or 
about the gin-shop next door — and 
their wives patiently standing on the 
curb-stone, with large baskets of cheap 
vegetables slung round them for sale, 
are its immediate auxiliaries. 

If the outside of the pawnbroker's 
shop, be calculated to attract the atten- ■ 
tion, or excite the interest, of the 
speculative pedestrian, its interior 
cannot fail to produce the same effect 
in an increased degree. The front 
door, which we have before noticed, 
opens into the common shop, which is 
the resort of all those customers whose 
habitual acquaintance with such scenes 
renders them indifferent to the obser- 
vation of their companions in poverty. 
The side door opens into a small 
passage from which some half-dozen 
doors (which may be secured on the 
inside by bolts) open into a corre- 
sponding number of little dens, or 
closets, which face the counter. Here, 
the more timid or respectable portion 
of the crowd shroud themselves from 
the notice of the remainder, and 
patiently wait until the gentleman 
behind the counter, with the curly 
black hair, diamond ring, and double 
silver watch-guard, shall feel disposed 
to favour them with his notice — a con- 
summation which depends considerably 
on the temper of the aforesaid gentle- 
man for the time being. 

At the present moment, this elegantly- 
attired individual is in the act of enter- 
ing the duplicate he has just made out, 
in a thick book: a process from which 
he is diverted occasionally, by a con- 
versation he is carrying on with 
another young man similarly employed 
at a little distance from him, whose 
allusions to " that last bottle of soda- 
water last night," and " how regularly, 
round my hat he felt himself when the 
young 'ooman gave 'em in charge," 
would appear to refer to the conse- 
quences of some stolen joviality of the 
preceding evening. The customers 
I 2 



116 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



generally. however, seem unable to par- 
ticipate in the amusement derivable 
from this source, for an old sallow- 
looking woman, who has been leaning 
with both arms on the counter with a 
small bundle before her, for half an 
hour previously, suddenly interrupts 
the conversation by addressing the 
jewelled shopman — "Now, Mr. Henry, 
do make haste, there 's a good soul, for 
my two grandchildren 's locked up at 
home, and I 'm afeer'd of the fire." 
The shopman slightly raises his head, 
with an air of deep abstraction, and 
resumes his entry with as much deli- 
beration as if he were engraving. 
"You're in a hurry, Mrs. Tatham, 
this ev'nin', an't you?" is the only 
notice he deigns to take, after the 
lapse of five minutes or so. " Yes, I 
am indeed, Mr. Henry ; now, do serve 
me next, there's a good creetur. I 
wouldn't worry you, only it's all aloug 
o' them botherin' children." " What 
have you got here ?" inquires the 
shopman, unpinning the bundle — " old 
concern, I suppose — pair o' stays and 
a petticut. You must look up some- 
thin' else, old 'ooman ; I can't lend 
you any thing more upon them, they 're 
completely worn out by this time, if 
it 's only by putting in, and taking out 
again, three times a week." " Oh ! 
you 're a rum un, you are," replies the 
old woman, laughing extremely, as in 
duty bound ; " I wish I 'd got the gift 
of the gab like you ; see if 1 'd be up 
the spout so often then ! No, no ; it 
an't the petticut ; it 's a child's frock 
and a beautiful silk-ankecher, as 
belongs to my husband. He gave four 
shillin' for it, the werry same blessed 
day as he broke his arm." — " What 
do you want upon these?" inquires 
Mr. Henry, slightly glancing at the 
articles, which in all probability are 
old acquaintances. " What do you 
want upon these V — "Eighteenpence." 
— " Lend you ninepence." — " Oh, make 
it a shillin' ; there 's a dear — do now !" 
— " Not another farden." — " Well, I 
suppose I must take it." The dupli- 
cate is made out, one ticket pinned on 
the parcel, the other given to the old 
woman ; the parcel is flung carelessly 



down into a corner, and some other 
customer prefers his claim to be served 
without further delay. 

The choice falls on an unshaven, 
{ dirty, sottish-looking fellow, whose 
tarnished paper-cap, stuck negligently 
over one eye, communicates an addi- 
tionally repulsive expression to his 
very uninviting countenance. He was 
enjoying a little relaxation from his 
sedentary pursuits a quarter of an 
hour ago, in kicking his wife up the 
court. He has come to redeem some 
I tools : — probably to complete a j ob with, 
j on account of which he has already 
I received some money, if his inflamed 
! countenance and drunken stagger, may 
1 be taken as evidence of the fact. 
| Having waited some little time, he 
\ makes his presence known by venting 
, his ill-humour on a ragged urchin, who, 
being unable to bring his face on a 
level with the counter by any other 
i process, has employed himself in climb- 
ing up, and then hooking himself on 
with his elbows — an uneasy perch, 
i from which he has fallen at intervals, 
1 generally alighting on the toes of the 
| person in his immediate vicinity. In 
! the present case, the unfortunate little 
i wretch has received a cuff which sends 
' him reeling to the door ; and the donor 
j of the blow is immediately the object 
j of general indignation. 

" What do you strike the boy for, 
I you brute ? " exclaims a slip-shod 
woman, with two fiat irons in a little 
basket. " Do you think he 's your 
wife, you willin ? " — " Go and hang 
yourself ! " replies the gentleman ad- 
dressed, with a drunken look of savage 
stupidity, aiming at the same time a 
blow at the woman which fortunately 
misses its object. " Go and hang 
yourself ; and wait till I come and cut 
you down." — " Cut you down," rejoins 
the woman, " I wish I had the cutting 
of you up, you wagabond ! (loud.) 
Oh ! you precious wagabond ! (rather 
louder.) Where 's your wife, you 
willin ? (louder still ; women of this 
class are always sympathetic, and 
work themselves into a tremendous 
passion on the shortest notice.) Your 
poor dear wife as you uses worser nor 



THE PAWNBROKER'S SHOP. 



117 



a dog — strike a woman — you a man ! 
(very shrill ;) I wish I had you— I 'd 
murder you, I would, if I died for it! " 
— "Now be civil," retorts the man 
fiercely. " Be civil, you wiper ! " 
ejaculates the woman contemptuously, 
" An 't it shocking % " she continues, 
turning round, and appealing to an 
old woman who is peeping out of one 
of the little closets we have before 
described, and who has not the slight- 
est objection to join in the attack, 
possessing, as she does, the comfort- 
able conviction that she is bolted in. 
" An't it shocking, ma'am ? (Dreadful ! 
says the old woman in a parenthesis, 
not exactly knowing what the question 
refers to.) He's got a wife, ma'am, 
as takes in mangling, and is as 'dustri- 
ous and hard-working a young 'ooman 
as can be, (very fast) as lives in the 
back-parlour of our 'ous, which my 
husband and me lives in the front one 
(with great rapidity) — and we hears 
him a beaten' on her sometimes when 
he comes home drunk, the whole 
night through, and not only a beaten' 
her, but beaten' his own child too, to 
make her more miserable — ugh, you 
beast ! and she, poor creater, won't 
swear the peace agin him, nor do 
nothin', because she likes the wretch 
arter all — worse luck ! " Here, as 
the woman has completely run herself 
out of breath, the pawnbroker him- 
self, who has just appeared behind 
the counter in a gray dressing-gown, 
embraces the favourable opportunity 
of putting in a word : — " Now I won't 
have none of this sort of thing on my 
premises ! " he interposes with an air 
of authority. " Mrs. Mackin, keep 
yourself to yourself, or you don't 
get fourpence for a flat iron here ; 
and Jinkins, you leave your ticket 
here till you 're sober, and send your 
wife for them two planes, for I won't 
have you in my shop at no price ; so 
make yourself scarce, before I make 
you scarcer." 

This eloquent address produces any 
tiling but the effect desired; the women 
rail in concert ; the man hits about 
him in all directions, and is in the act 
of establishing an indisputable claim 



to gratuitous lodgings for the night, 
when the entrance of his wife, a 
wretched worn-out woman, apparently 
in the last stage of consumption, whose 
face bears evident marks of recent 
ill-usage, and whose strength seems 
hardly equal to the burden — light 
enough God knows ! — of the thin sickly 
child she carries in her arms, turns 
his cowardly rage in a safer direction. 
" Come home, dear," cries the miser- 
able creature, in an imploring tone ; 
" do come home, there 's a good fellow, , 
and go to bed." — "Go home your- 
self, " rejoins the furious ruffian. "Do 
come home quietly," repeats the wife, 
bursting into tears. " Go home your- 
self," retorts the husband again, en- 
forcing his argument by a blow which 
sends the poor creature flying out of the 
shop. Her " natural protector " follows 
her up the court, alternately venting 
his rage in accelerating her progress, 
and in knocking the little scanty blue 
bonnet of the unfortunate child over 
its still more scanty and faded-looking 
face. 

In the last box, which is situated in 
the darkest and most obscure corner 
of the shop, considerably removed 
from either of the gas-lights, are a 
young delicate girl of about twenty, 
and an elderly female, evidently her 
mother from the resemblance between 
them, who stand at some distance 
back, as if to avoid the observation 
even of the shopman. It is not their 
first visit to a pawnbroker's shop, for 
they answer without a moment's hesi- 
tation the usual questions, put in a 
rather respectful manner, and in a 
much lower tone than usual, of " What 
name shall I say ? — Your own pro- 
perty, of course ? — Where do you 
live ? — Housekeeper or lodger ? " 
They bargain, too, for a higher loan 
than the shopman is at first inclined 
to offer, which a perfect stranger 
would be little disposed to do ; and 
the elder female urges her daughter 
on, in scarcely audible whispers, to 
exert her utmost powers of persuasion 
to obtain an advance of the sum, and 
expatiate on the value of the articles 
they have brought to raise a present 



118 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



supply upon. They are a small gold 
chain and a " Forget me not " ring : 
the girl's property, for they are both 
too small for the mother ; given her 
in better times ; prized, perhaps, once, 
for the giver's sake, but parted with 
now without a struggle ; for want has 
hardened the mother, and her example 
has hardened the girl, and the pro- 
spect of receiving money, coupled with 
a recollection of the misery they have 
both endured from the want of it — 
the coldness of old friends — the stern 
refusal of some, and the still more 
galling compassion of others — appears 
to have obliterated the consciousness 
of self-humiliation, which the idea 
of their present situation would once 
have aroused. 

In the next box, is a young female, 
whose attire, miserably poor, but 
extremely gaudy, wretchedly cold but 
extravagantly fine, too plainly be- 
speaks her station. The rich satin 
gown with its faded trimmings, the 
worn-out thin shoes, and pink silk 
stockings, the summer bonnet in winter, 
and the sunken face, where a daub 
of rouge only serves as an index 
to the ravages of squandered health 
never to be regained, and lost happi- 
ness never to be restored, and where 
the practised smile is a wretched 
mockery of the misery of the heart, 
cannot be mistaken. There is some- 
thing in the glimpse she has just 
caught of her young neighbour, and 
in the sight of the little trinkets she 
has offered in pawn, that seems to 
have awakened in this woman's mind 
some slumbering recollection, and to 
have changed, for an instant, her 
whole demeanour. Her first hasty 



impulse was to bend forward as if to 
scan more minutely the appearance of 
her half-concealed companions ; her 
next on seeing them involuntarily 
shrink from her, to retreat to the 
back of the box, cover her face with 
her hands, and burst into tears. 

There are strange chords in the 
human heart, which will lie dormant 
through years of depravity and wicked- 
ness, but which will vibrate at last to 
some slight circumstance apparently 
trivial in itself, but connected by some 
undefined and indistinct association, 
with past days that can never be 
recalled, and with bitter recollections 
from which the most degraded creature 
in existence cannot escape. 

There has been another spectator, 
in the person of a woman in the com- 
mon shop ; the lowest of the low ; 
dirty, unbonneted, flaunting, and slo- 
venly. Her curiosity was at first 
attracted by the little she could see of 
the group ; then her attention. The 
half intoxicated leer changed to an 
expression of something like interest, 
and a feeling similar to that we have 
described, appeared for a moment, and 
only a moment, to extend itself even 
to her bosom. 

Who shall say how soon these 
women may change places ? The last 
has but two more stages— the hospital 
and the grave. How many females 
situated as her two companions are, 
and as she may have been once, have 
terminated the same wretched course, 
in the same wretched manner. One 
is already tracing her footsteps with 
frightful rapidity. How soon may the 
other follow her example ! How 
many have done the same ! 



CRIMINAL COURTS. 



119 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



CRIMINAL COURTS. 



We shall never forget the mingled 
feelings of awe and respect with which 
we used to gaze on the exterior of 
Newgate in our schoolboy days. How 
dreadful its rough heavy walls, and 
low massive doors, appeared to us — 
the latter looking as if they were 
made for the express purpose of letting 
people in, and never letting them out 
again. Then the fetters over the 
debtors' door, which we used to think 
were a bono, fide set of irons, just hung 
up there, for convenience sake, ready 
to be taken down at a moment's notice, 
and riveted on the limbs of some re- 
fractory felon ! We were never tired 
of wondering how the hackney-coach- 
men on the opposite stand could cut 
jokes in the presence of such horrors, 
and drink pots of half-and-half so near 
the last drop. 

Often have we strayed here, in 
sessions time, to catch a glimpse of 
the whipping-place, and that dark 
building on one side of the yard,, in 
which is kept the gibbet with all its 
dreadful apparatus, and on the door of 
which we half expected to see a brass 
plate, with the inscription "Mr. Ketch;" 
for we never imagined that the distin- 
guished functionary could by possibility 
live anywhere else ! The days of these 
childish dreams have passed away, and 
with them many other boyish ideas of 
a gayer nature. But we still retain so 
much of our original feeling, that to 
this hour we never pass the building 
without something like a shudder. 

What London pedestrian is there 
who has not, at some time or other, 
cast a hurried glance through the 
wicket at which prisoners are ad- 
mitted into this gloomy mansion, and 
surveyed the few objects he could 
discern, with an indescribable feeling 
of curiosity ? The thick door, plated 
with iron and mounted with spikes, 
just low enough to enable you to see, 



leaning over them, an ill-looking fel- 
low, in a broad-brimmed hat, belcher 
handkerchief and top-boots : with a 
brown coat, something between a great- 
coat and a "sporting" jacket, on his 
back r and an immense key in his left 
hand. Perhaps you are lucky enough 
to pass, just as the gate is being opened; 
then, you see on the other side of the 
lodge, another gate, the image of its 
predecessor, and two or three more 
turnkeys, who look like multiplications 
of the first one, seated round a fire 
which just lights up the whitewashed 
apartment sufficiently to enable you to 
catch a hasty glimpse of these different 
objects. We have a great respect for 
Mrs. Fry, but she certainly ought to 
have written more romances than 
Mrs. Radcliffe. 

We were walking leisurely down the 
Old Bailey, some time ago, when, as 
we passed this identical gate, it was 
opened by the officiating turnkey. 
We turned quickly round, as a matter 
of course, and saw two persons de- 
scending the steps. We could not 
help stopping and observing them. 

They were an elderly woman, of 
decent appearance, though evidently 
poor, and a boy of about fourteen or fif- 
teen. The woman was crying bitterly ; 
she carried a small bundle in her hand, 
and the boy followed at a short dis- 
tance behind her. Their little history 
was obvious. The boy was her son, 
to whose early comfort she had per- 
haps sacrificed her own — for whose 
sake she had borne misery without 
repining, and poverty without a mur- 
mur — looking steadily forward to the 
time, when he who had so long wit- 
nessed her struggles for himself, might 
be enabled to make some exertions for 
their joint support. He had formed 
dissolute connexions ; idleness had led 
to crime ; and he had been committed 
to take his trial for some petty theft. 



120 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



He had been long in prison, and, I dignified enough in their own opinion ; 
after receiving some trifling additional \ and the spectators, who having paid 
punishment, had been ordered to be for then- admission, look upon the 
discharged that morning. It was his ; whole scene as if it were got up especi- 
first offence, and his poor old mother, ' ally for their amusement. Look upon 
still hoping to reclaim him, had been '; the whole group in the body of the 
waiting at the gate to implore him to Court — some wholly engrossed in the 
return^home. morning papers, others carelessly con- 

We cannot forget the boy ; he de- versing in low whispers, and others, 
scended the steps with a dogged look, j again, quietly dozing away an hour — 
shaking his head with an air of bra- | and you can scarcely believe that the 
vado and obstinate determination, j result of the trial is a matter of life or 
They walked a few paces, and paused, i death to one wretched being present. 
The* woman put her hand upon his j But turn your eyes to the dock : watch 
shoulder in an agony of entreat}', and ; the prisoner attentively for a few 
the bov sullenly "raised his head as if moments; and the fact is before you, 
in refusal. It was a brilliant morning, ! in all its painful reality. Mark how 
and every object looked fresh and ! restlessly he has been engaged for the 
happy in the broad, gay sun-light ; he j last ten minutes, in forming all sorts 
wazed round him for a few moments, ; of fantastic figures with the herbs 
bewildered with the brightness of the j which are strewed upon the ledge 
scene, for it was long since he had before him ; observe the ashy paleness 



beheld anything save the gloomy walk 
of a prison. Perhaps the wretched 
ness of his mother made some impres 
sion on the boy's heart; perhaps some 
undefined recollection of the time when 
he was a happy child, and she his onl 
friend, and best companion, crowded 
on him — he burst into tears ; and 
covering his face with one hand, and 
hurriedly placing the other in his 
mothers*, walked away with her. 

Curiosity has occasionally led us 
into both Courts at the Old Bailey. 
Nothing is so likely to strike the 
person who enters them for the first 
time, as the calm indifference with 
which the proceedings are conducted 



of his face when a particular witness 
appears, and how he changes his 
position and wipes his clammy fore- 
head, and feverish hands, when the 
a j case for the prosecution is closed, as if 
y I it were a relief to him to feel that the 
jury knew the worst. 

The defence is concluded; the judge 
proceeds to sum up the evidence; and 
the*prisoner watches the countenances 
of the jury, as a dying man, clinging 
to life to the very last, vainly looks in 
the face of his physician for a slight 
ray of hope. They turn round to 
consult ; you can almost hear the man's 
heart beat, as he bites the stalk of 
rosemary, with a desperate effort to 



every trial seems a mere matter of : appear composed. They resume their 
business. There is a great deal of j places — a dead silence prevails as the 
form, but no compassion ; consider- 



able interest, but no sympathy. Take 
the Old Court for example. There sit 
the Judges, with whose great dignity 



foreman delivers in the verdict 
" Guilty ! " A shriek bursts from a 
female in the gallery ; the prisoner 
casts one look at the quarter from 



body is acquainted, and of whom whence the noise proceeded ; and is 



therefore we need say no more. Then, 
there is the Lord Mayor in the centre, 
looking as cool as a Lord Mayor can 
look, with an immense bouquet before 
him,' and habited in all the splendour 
of his office. Then, there are the 
Sheriffs, who are almost as digni- 
fied as the Lord Mayor himself; 
and the Barristers, who are quite 



immediately hurried from the dock by 
the gaoler. The clerk directs one of 
the officers of the court to " take the 
woman out," and fresh business is 
proceeded with, as if nothing had 
occurred. 

Xo imaginary contrast to a case 
like this, could be as complete as that 
which is constantly presented in the 



CRIMINAL COURTS 



121 



New Court, the gravity of which is 
frequently disturbed in no small de- 
gree, by the cunning and pertinacity of 
juvenile offenders. A boy of thirteen 
is tried, say for picking the pocket of 
some subject of her Majesty, and the 
offence is about as clearly proved as 
an offence can be. He is called upon 
for his defence, and contents himself 
with a little declamation about the 
jurymen and his country — asserts 
that all the witnesses have committed 
perjury, and hints that the police force 
generally, have entered into a con- 
spiracy " again " him. However 
probable this statement may be, it 
fails to convince the Court, and some 
such scene as the following then takes 
place : 

Court : Have you any witnesses to 
speak to your character, boy ? 

Boy : Yes, my Lord ; fifteen gen'l- 
m'n is a vaten outside, and vos a vaten 
all day yesterday, vich they told me 
the night afore my trial vos a comin' on. 

Court : Inquire for these witnesses. 

Here, a stout beadle runs out, and 
vociferates for the witnesses at the very 
top of his voice ; for you hear his cry 
grow fainter and fainter as he de- 
scends the steps into the court-yard 
below. After an absence of five 
minutes, he returns, very warm and 
hoarse, and informs the Court of what 
it knew perfectly well before — namely, 



that there are no such witnesses in 
attendance. Hereupon, the boy sets 
up a most awful howling ; screws the 
lower part of the palms of his hands 
into the corners of his eyes ; and en- 
deavours to look the picture of injured 
innocence. The jury at once find 
him "guilty," and his endeavours to 
squeeze out a tear or two are re- 
doubled. The governor of the gaol 
then states, in reply to an inquiry 
from the bench, that the prisoner has 
been under his care twice before* 
This the urchin resolutely denies in 
some such terms as — " S'elp me, 
gen'lm'n, I never vos in trouble afore 
— indeed, my Lord, I never vos. It 's 
all a howen to my having a twin 
brother, vich has wrongfully got into 
trouble, and vich is so exactly like 
me, that no vun ever knows the differ- 
ence atween us." 

This representation, like the defence, 
fails in producing the desired effect, 
and the boy is sentenced, perhaps, to 
seven years' transportation. Finding 
it impossible to excite compassion, he 
gives vent to his feelings in an impre- 
cation bearing reference to the eyes 
of "old big vig !" and as he declines 
to take the trouble of walking from 
the dock, is forthwith carried out, con- 
gratulating himself onhaving succeeded 
in giving everybody as much trouble 
a3 possible. 



122 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



A VISIT TO NEWGATE. 



a The force of habit" is a trite phrase 
in every body's mouth ; and it is not 
a little remarkable that those who use 
it most as applied to others, uncon- 
sciously afford hi their own persons 
singular examples of the power which 
habit and custom exercise over the 
minds of men, and of the little reflec- 
tion they are apt to bestow on subjects 
with which every day's experience has 
rendered them familiar. If Bedlam 
could be suddenly removed like an- 
other Aladdin's palace, and set down on 
the space now occupied by Newgate, 
scarcely one man out of a hundred, 
whose road to business every morning 
lies through Newgate-street, or the 
Old Bailey, would pass the building 
without bestowing a hasty glance on 
its small, grated windows, and a trans- 
ient thought upon the condition of 
the unhappy beings immured in its: 
dismal cells ; and yet these same men, 
day by day, and hour by hour, pass ; 
and repass this gloomy depository of 
the guilt and misery of London, in one 
perpetual stream of life and bustle, 
utterly unmindful of the throng of 
wretched creatures pent up within it 
— nay, not even knowing, or if they do, 
not heeding, the fact, that as they pass 
one particular angle of the massive 
wall with a light laugh or a merry 
whistle, they stand within one yard of 
a fellow- creature, bound and helpless, 
whose hours are numbered, from whom 
the last feeble ray of hope has fled for 
ever, and whose miserable career will 
shortly terminate in a violent and 
shameful death. Contact with death 
even in its least terrible shape, is 
solemn and appalling. How much 
more awful is it to reflect on this near 
vicinity to the dying — to men in full 
health and vigour, in the flower of 
youth or the prime of life, with all 
their faculties and perceptions as 
acute and perfect as your own ; but 



dying, nevertheless — dying as surely 
— with the hand of death imprinted 
upon them as indelibly — as if mortal 
disease had wasted their frames to 
shadows, and corruption had already 
begun ! 

It was with some such thoughts as 
these that we determined, not many 
weeks since, to visit the interior of 
Newgate — in an amateur capacity, of 
course ; and, having carried our inten- 
tion into effect, we proceed to lay its 
results before our readers, in the hope 
— founded more upon the nature of the 
subject, than on any presumptuous con- 
fidence in our own descriptive powers 
— that this paper may not be found 
wholly devoid of interest. We have 
only to premise, that we do not intend 
to fatigue the reader with any statis- 
tical accounts of the prison ; they will 
be found at length in numerous reports 
of numerous committees, and a variety 
of authorities of equal weight. We 
took no notes, made no memoranda, 
measured none of the yards, ascer- 
tained the exact number of inches in. 
no particular room : are unable even 
to report of how many apartments the 
gaol is composed. 

We saw the prison, and saw the 
prisoners ; and what we did see, and 
what we thought, we will tell at once 
in our own way. 

Having delivered our credentials to 
the servant who answered our knock 
at the door of the governor's house, we 
were ushered into the " office ;" a little 
room, on the right-hand side as you 
enter, with two windows looking into 
the Old Bailey : fitted up like an ordi- 
nary attorney's office, or merchant's 
counting-house, with the usual fixtures 
— a wainscoted partition, a shelf or 
two, a desk, a couple of stools, a pair 
of clerks, an almanack, a clock, and a 
few maps. After a little delay, occa- 
sioned by sending into the interior of 



A VISIT TO NEWGATE. 



123 



the prison for the officer whose duty 
it was to conduct us, that functionary 
arrived ; a respectable-looking man of 
about two or three and fifty, in a 
broad-brimmed hat, and full suit of 
black, who, but for his keys, would 
have looked quite as much like a 
clergyman as a turnkey. We were 
disappointed ; he had not even top- 
boots on. Following our conductor 
by a door opposite to that at which 
we had entered, we arrived at a 
small room, without any other fur- 
niture than a little desk, with a book 
for visiters' autographs, and a shelf, 
on which were a few boxes for papers, 
and casts of the heads and faces of the 
two notorious murderers, Bishop and 
Williams ; the former, in particular, 
exhibiting a style of head and set of 
features, which might have afforded 
sufficient moral grounds for his instant 
execution at any time, even had there 
been no other evidence against him. 
Leaving this room also, by an opposite 
door, we found ourself in the lodge 
which opens on the Old Bailey ; one 
side of which is plentifully garnished 
with a choice collection of heavy sets 
of irons, including those worn by the 
redoubtable Jack .Sheppard — genuine ; 
and those said to have been graced by 
the sturdy limbs of the no less cele- 
brated Dick Turpin — doubtful. From 
this lodge, a heavy oaken gate, bound 
with iron, studded with nails of the same 
material, and guarded by another 
turnkey, opens on a few steps, if we 
remember right, which terminate in a 
narrow and dismal stone passage, 
running parallel with the Old Bailey, 
and leading to the different yards, 
through a number of tortuous and 
intricate windings, guarded in their 
turn by huge gates and gratings, whose 
appearance is sufficient to dispel at 
once the slightest hope of escape that 
any new comer may have entertained; 
and the very recollection of which, 
on eventually traversing the place 
again, involves one in a maze of 
confusion. 

It is necessary to explain here, that 
the buildings in the prison, or in other 
words the different wards — form a 



square, of which the four sides abut 
respectively on the Old Bailey, the old 
College of Physicians (now forming a 
part of Newgate-market), the Sessions- 
house, and Newgate-street. The inter- 
mediate space is divided into several 
paved yards, in which the prisoners 
take such air and exercise as can be 
had in such a place. These yards, 
with the exception of that in which 
prisoners under sentence of death are 
confined (of which we shall presently 
give a more detailed description), run 
parallel with Newgate-street, and con- 
sequently from the Old Bailey, as it 
were, to Newgate-market. The wo- 
men's side is in the right wing of the 
prison nearest the Sessions-house. 
As we were introduced into this part 
of the building first, we will adopt 
the same order, and introduce our 
readers to it also. 

Turning to the right, then, down the 
passage to which we just now adverted, 
omitting any mention of intervening 
gates — for if we noticed every gate 
that was unlocked for us to pass 
through, and locked again as soon as 
we had passed, we should require a 
gate at every comma — we came to a 
door composed of thick bars of wood, 
through which were discernible, pass- 
ing to and fro in a narrow yard, some 
twenty women : the majority of whom, 
however, as soon as they were aware 
of the presence of strangers, retreated 
to their wards.. One side of this yard 
is railed off at a considerable distance, 
and formed into a kind of iron cage, 
about five feet ten inches in height, 
roofed at the top, and defended in 
front by iron bars, from which the 
friends of the female prisoners com- 
municate with them. In one corner 
of this singular-looking den, was a 
yellow, haggard, decrepit old woman, 
in a tattered gown that had once been 
black, and the remains of an old straw 
bonnet, with faded ribbon of the same 
hue, in earnest conversation with a 
young girl — a prisoner, of course — of 
about two-and-twenty. It is impos- 
sible to imagine a more poverty- 
stricken object, or a creature so borne 
down in soul and body, by excess of 



124 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



misery and destitution as the old 
woman. The girl was a good-looking 
robust female, with a profusion of 
hair streaming about in the wind 
— for she had no bonnet on — and 
a man's silk pocket-handkerchief 
loosely thrown over a most ample 
pair of shoulders. The old woman 
was talking in that low, stifled tone of 
voice which tells so forcibly of mental 
anguish ; and every now and then 
burst into an irrepressible sharp, ab- 
rupt cry of grief, the most distressing 
sound that ears can hear. The girl 
was perfectly unmoved. Hardened 
beyond all hope of redemption, she 
listened doggedly to her mother's 
entreaties, whatever they were : and, 
beyond enquiring after "Jem," and 
eagerly catching at the few halfpence 
her miserable parent had brought her, 
took no more apparent interest in the 
conversation than the most uncon- 
cerned spectators. Heaven knows there 
were enough of them, in the persons of 
the other prisoners in the yard, who 
were no more concerned by what was 
passing before their eyes, and within 
their hearing, than if they were blind 
and deaf. Why should they be ? In- 
side the prison, and out, such scenes 
were too familiar to them, to excite 
even a passing thought, unless of ridi- 
cule or contempt for feelings which 
they had long since forgotten. 

A little farther on, a squalid-looking 
woman in a slovenly, thick-bordered 
cap, with her arms muffled in a 
large red shawl, the fringed ends of 
which straggled nearly to the bottom 
of a dirty white apron, was communi- 
cating some instructions to her visiter 
— her daughter evidently. The girl 
was thinly clad, and shaking with the 
cold. Some ordinary word of recog- 
nition passed between her and her 
mother when she appeared at the 
grating, but neither hope, condolence, 
regret, nor affection was expressed on 
either side. The mother whispered 
her instructions, and the girl received 
them with her pinched-up half-starved 
features twisted into an expression of 
careful cunning. It was some scheme 
for the woman's defence that she was 



disclosing, perhaps ; and a sullen smile 
came over the girl's face for an instant, 
as if she were pleased : not so much at 
the probability of her mother's libera- 
tion, as at the chance of her " getting 
off" in spite of her prosecutors. The 
dialogue was soon concluded ; and 
with the same careless indifference 
with which they had approached each 
other, the mother turned towards the 
inner end of the yard, and the girl to 
the gate at which she had entered. 

The girl belonged to a class — unhap- 
pily but too extensive — the very exist- 
ence of which, should make men's 
hearts bleed. Barely past her child- 
hood, it required but a glance to dis- 
cover that she was one of those chil- 
dren, born and bred in neglect and 
vice, who have never known what 
childhood is : who have never been 
taught to love and court a parent's 
smile, or to dread a parent's frown. 
The thousand nameless endearments 
of childhood, its gaiety and its inno- 
cence, are alike unknown to them. 
They have entered at once upon the 
stern realities and miseries of life, and 
to their better nature it is almost hope- 
less to appeal in aftertimes, by any of 
the references which will awaken, if it 
be only for a moment, some good feel- 
ing in ordinary bosoms, however cor- 
rupt they may have become. Talk to 
them of parental solicitude, the happy 
days of childhood, and the merry 
games of infancy ! Tell them of hunger 
and the streets, beggary and stripes, 
the gin-shop, the station-house, and 
the pawnbroker's, and they will under- 
stand you. 

Two or three women were standing 
at different parts of the grating, con- 
versing with their friends, but a very 
large proportion of the prisoners ap- 
peared to have no friends at all, beyond 
such of their old companions as might 
happen to be within the walls. So, 
passing hastily down the yard, and 
pausing only for an instant to notice 
the little incidents we have just re- 
corded, we were conducted up a clean 
and well-lighted flight of stone stairs 
to one of the wards. There are seve- 
ral in this part of the building, but a 



A VISIT TO NEWGATE. 



125 



description of one is a description of 
the whole. 

It was a spacious, bare, whitewashed 
apartment, lighted of course, by win- 
dows looking into the interior of the 
prison, but far more light and airy 
than one could reasonably expect to 
find in such a situation. There was a 
large fire with a deal table before it, 
round which ten or a dozen women 
were seated on wooden forms at dinner. 
Along both sides of the room ran a 
shelf ; below it, at regular intervals, 
a row of large hooks were fixed in 
the wall, on each of which was hung 
the sleeping-mat of a prisoner : her 
rug and blanket being folded up, and 
placed on the shelf above. At night, 
these mats are placed on the floor, 
each beneath the hook on which it 
hangs during the day ; and the ward 
is thus made to answer the purposes 
both of a day-room and sleeping apart- 
ment. Over the fireplace, was a large 
sheet of pasteboard, on which were 
displayed a variety of texts from 
Scripture, which were also scattered 
about the room in scraps about the 
size and shape of the copy-slips which 
are used in schools. On the table was a 
sufficient provision of a kind of stewed 
beef and brown bread, in pewter dishes, 
which are kept perfectly bright, and dis- 
played on shelves in great order and 
regularity when they are not in use. 

The women rose hastily, on our en- 
trance, and retired in a hurried manner 
to either side of the fireplace. They 
were all cleanly — many of them de- 
cently — attired, and there was nothing 
peculiar, either in their appearance or 
demeanour. One or two resumed the 
needlework which they had probably 
laid aside at the commencement of 
their meal ; others gazed at the visitors 
with listless curiosity ; and a few re- 
tired behind their companions to the 
very end of the room, as if desirous to 
avoid even the casual observation of the 
strangers. Some old Irish women, 
both in this and other wards, to whom 
the thing was no novelty, appeared 
perfectly indifferent to our presence, 
and remained standing close to the 
seats from which they had just risen ; 



but the general feeling among the 
females seemed to be one of uneasi- 
ness during the period of our stay 
among them : which was very brief. 
Not a word was uttered during the 
time of our remaining, unless, indeed, 
by the wardswoman in reply to some 
question which we put to the turnkey 
who accompanied us. In every ward 
on the female side, a wardswoman is 
appointed to preserve order, and a 
similar regulation is adopted among 
the males. The wardsmen and wards- , 
women are all prisoners, selected for 
good conduct. They alone are allowed 
the privilege of sleeping on bedsteads ; 
a small stump bedstead being placed 
in every ward for that purpose. On 
both sides of the gaol, is a small re- 
ceiving-room, to which prisoners are 
conducted on their first reception, and 
whence they cannot be removed until 
they have been examined by the sur- 
geon of the prison.* 

Retracing our steps to the dismal 
passage in which we found ourselves 
at first (and which, by the by, contains 
three or four dark cells for the accom- 
modation of refractory prisoners), we 
were led through a narrow yard to the 
" school " — a portion of the prison set 
apart for boys under fourteen years of 
age. In a tolerable-sized room, in 
which were writing-materials and some 
copy-books, was the schoolmaster, with 
a couple of his pupils ; the remain- 
der having been fetched from an ad- 
joining apartment, the whole were 
drawn up in line for our inspection. 
There were fourteen of them in all, 
some with shoes, some without ; some 
in pinafores without jackets, others in 
jackets without pinafores, and one in 
scarce anything at all. The whole 
number, without an exception we be- 
lieve, had been committed for trial on 
charges of pocket-picking ; and four- 
teen such terrible little faces we 
never beheld. — There was not one 



* The regulations of the prison relative to 
the confinement of prisoners during the day, 
their sleeping at night, their taking their meals , 
and other matters of gaol economy, have been 
all altered— greatly for the better— since this 
sketch was first published. 



126 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



redeeming feature among them — not 
a .glance of honesty — not a wink ex- 
pressive of anything but the gallows 
and the hulks, in the whole collection. 
As to anything like shame or contri- 
tion, that was entirely out of the ques- 
tion. They were evidently quite 
gratified at being thought worth the 
trouble of looking at ; their idea ap- 
peared to be, that we had come to see 
Newgate as a grand affair, and that 
they were an indispensable part of the 
show ; and every boy as he " fell in " 
to the line, actually seemed as pleased 
and important as if he had done some- 
thing excessively meritorious in get- 
ting there at all. We never looked 
upon a more disagreeable sight, because 
we never saw fourteen such hopeless 
creatures of neglect, before. 

On either side of the school- yard is 
a yard for men, in one of which — that 
towards Newgate-street — prisoners of 
the more respectable class are confined. 
Of the other, we have little description 
to offer, as the different wards neces- 
sarily partake of the same character. 
They are provided, like the wards on 
the women's side, with mats and rugs, 
which are disposed of in the same 
manner during the day ; the only 
very striking difference between their 
appearance and that of the wards in- 
habited by the females, is the utter 
absence of any employment. Hud- 
dled together on two opposite forms, 
by the fireside, sit twenty men per- 
haps ; here, a boy in livery ; there, a 
man in a rough great-coat and top- 
boots ; farther on, a desperate-looking 
fellow in his shirt sleeves, with an old 
Scotch cap upon his shaggy head ; 
near him again, a tall ruffian, in a 
smock-frock ; next to him, a mise- 
rable being of distressed appearance, 
with his head resting on his hand ; — 
all alike in one respect, all idle and 
listless. When they do leave the fire, 
sauntering moodily about, lounging in 
the window, or leaning against the 
wall, vacantly swinging their bodies to 
and fro. With the exception of a 
man reading an old newspaper, in two 
or three instances, this was the case in 
every ward we entered. 



The only communication these men 
have with their friends, is through two 
close iron gratings, with an interme- 
diate space of about a yard in width 
between the two, so that nothing can 
be handed aeross, nor can the prisoner 
have any communication by touch 
with the person who visits him. The 
married men have a separate grating, 
at which to see their wives, but its 
construction is the same. 

The prison chapel is situated at the 
back of the governor's house : the latter 
having no windows looking into the 
interior of the prison. Whether the 
associations connected with the place 
— the knowledge that here a portion 
of the burial service is, on some dread- 
ful occasions, performed over the quick 
and not upon the dead — cast over it a 
still more gloomy and sombre air than 
art has imparted to it, we know not, 
but its appearance is very striking. 
There is something in a silent and 
deserted place of worship, solemn 
and impressive at any time ; and 
the very dissimilarity of this one from 
any we have been accustomed to, 
only enhances the impression. The 
meanness of its appointments — the 
bare and scanty pulpit, with the paltry 
painted pillars on either side — the 
women's gallery with its great heavy 
curtain — the men's with its unpainted 
benches and dingy front — the tottering 
little table at the altar, with the com- 
mandments on the wall above it, 
scarcely legible through lack of paint, 
and dust and damp — so unlike the 
velvet and gilding, the marble and 
wood, of a modern church — are strange 
and striking. There is one object, 
too, which rivets the attention and 
fascinates the gaze, and from which we 
may turn horror-stricken in vain, for 
the recollection of it will haunt us, 
waking and sleeping, for a long time 
afterwards. Immediately below the 
reading-desk, on the floor of the 
chapel, and forming the most con- 
spicuous object in its little area, 
is the condemned peiv; a huge black 
pen, in which the wretched people, 
who are singled out for d«ath, are 
placed, on the Sunday preceding their 



A VISIT TO NEWGATE. 



127 



execution, in sight of all their fellow- 
prisoners, from many of whom they 
may have been separated but a week 
before, to hear prayers for then* own 
souls, to join in the responses of their 
own burial service, and to listen to an 
address, warning their recent compa- 
nions to take example by their fate, 
and urging themselves, while there is 
yet time — nearly four-and-twenty 
hours — to "turn, and flee from the 
wrath to come ! " Imagine what have 
been the feelings of the men whom 
that fearful pew has enclosed, and of 
whom, between the gallows and the 
knife, no mortal remnant may now 
remain ! Think of the hopeless clinging 
to life to the last, and the wild despair, 
far exceeding in anguish the felon's 
death itself, by which they have heard 
the certainty of their speedy transmis- 
sion to another world, with all their 
crimes upon their heads, rung into 
their ears by the officiating clergyman ! 

At one time — and at no distant 
period either — the coffins of the men 
about to be executed, were placed in 
that pew, upon the seat by their side, 
during the whole service. It may 
seem incredible, but it is true. Let 
us hope that the increased spirit of 
civilisation and humanity which abo- 
lished this frightful and degrading cus- 
tom, may extend itself to other usages 
equally barbarous ; usages which have 
not even the plea of utility in their 
defence, as every year's experience has 
shown them to be more and more 
inefficacious. 

Leaving the chapel, descending to 
the passage so frequently alluded to, 
and crossing the yard before noticed 
as being allotted to prisoners of a more 
l'espectable description than the gene- 
rality of men confined here, the visiter 
arrives at a thick iron gate of great 
size and strength. Having been ad- 
mitted through it by the turnkey on 
duty, he turns sharp round to the left, 
and pauses before another gate ; and, 
having passed this last barrier, he 
stands in the most terrible part of 
this gloomy building — the condemned 
ward. • 

The press-yard, well known by 



name to newspaper readers, from 
its frequent mention in accounts of 
executions, is at the corner of the 
building, and next to the ordinary's 
house, in Newgate-street : running 
from Newgate-street, towards the 
centre of the prison, parallel with 
Newgate-market. It is a long, narrow 
court, of which a portion of the wall in 
Newgate-street forms one end, and the 
gate the other. At the upper end, on 
the left-hand — that is, adjoining the 
wall in Newgate-street — is a cistern of 
water, and at the bottom a double* 
grating (of which the gate itself forms 
a part) similar to that before. described. 
Through these grates the prisoners are 
allowed to see their friends ; a turnkey 
always remaining in the vacant space 
between, during the whole interview. 
Immediately on the right as you enter, 
is a building containing the press-room, 
day-room, and cells ; the yard is on 
every side surrounded by lofty walls 
guarded by chevaux de /rise ; and the 
whole is under the constant inspection 
of vigilant and experienced turnkeys. 

In the first apartment into which we 
were conducted — which was at the top 
of a staircase, and immediately over 
the press-room — were five-and-twenty 
or thirty prisoners, all under sentence 
of death, awaiting the result of the 
recorder's report — men of all ages and 
appearances, from a hardened old of- 
fender with swarthy face and grizzly 
beard of three days' growth, to a hand- 
some boy, not fourteen years old, and 
of singularly youthful appearance even 
for that age, who had been condemned 
for burglary. There was nothing re- 
markable in the appearance of these 
prisoners. One or two decently-dressed 
men were brooding with a dejected air 
over the fire ; several little groups of 
two or three had been engaged in con- 
versation at the upper end of the room, 
or in the windows; and the remainder 
were crowded round a young man 
seated at a table, who appeared to 
be engaged in teaching the younger 
ones to write. The room was large, 
airy, and clean. There was very little 
anxiety or mental suffering depicted in 
the countenance of any of the men ; — 



128 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



they had all been sentenced to death, 
it is true, and the recorder's report 
had not yet been made ; but, we ques- 
tion whether there was a man among 
them, notwithstanding, who did not 
know that although he had undergone 
the ceremony, it never was intended 
that his life should be sacrificed. On 
the table lay a Testament, but there 
were no tokens of its having been in 
recent use. 

In the press-room betbw, were three 
men, the nature of "whose offence ren- 
dered it necessary to separate them, 
even from their companions in guilt. 
It is a long, sombre room, with two 
windows sunk into the stone wall, and 
here the wretched men are pinioned 
on the morning of their execution, be- 
fore moving towards the scaffold. The 
fate of one of these prisoners was un- 
certain; some mitigatory circumstances 
having come to light since his trial, 
which had been humanely represented 
in the proper quarter. The other two 
had nothing to expect from the mercy 
of the crown ; their doom was sealed ; 
no plea could be urged in extenuation 
of their crime, and they well knew that 
for them there was no hope in this 
world. K The two short ones," the 
turnkey whispered, " were dead men." 

The man to whom we have alluded 
as entertaining some hopes of escape, 
was lounging at the greatest distance 
he could place between himself and 
his companions, in the window nearest 
to the door. He was probably aware of 
our approach, and had assumed an air 
of courageous indifference ; his face 
was purposely averted towards the 
window, and he stirred not an inch 
while we were present. The other two 
men were at the upper end of the 
room. One of them, who was imper- 
fectly seen in the dim light, had his 
back towards us, and was stooping 
over the fire, with his right arm on 
the mantelpiece, and his head sunk 
upon it. The other, was leaning on 
the sill. of the farthest window. The 
light fell full upon him, and communi- 
cated to his, pale, haggard face, and dis- 
ordered hair, an appearance which, at 
that distance, was ghastly. His cheek 



rested upon his hand; and, with his 
face a little raised, and his eyes widely 
staring before him, he seemed to be 
unconsciously intent on counting the 
chinks in the opposite wall. We passed 
this room again afterwards. The first 
man was pacing up and down the court 
with a firm military step — he had been 
a soldier in the foot-guards — and a 
cloth cap jauntily thrown on one side 
of his head. He bowed respectfully to 
our conductor, and the salute was re- 
turned. The other two still remained 
in the positions we have described, and 
were as motionless as statues.* 

A few paces up the yard, and form- 
ing a continuation of the building, in 
which are the two rooms we have just 
quitted, lie the condemned cells. The 
entrance is by a narrow and obscure 
staircase leading to a dark passage, in 
which a charcoal stove casts a lurid 
tint over the objects in its immediate 
vicinity, and diffuses something like 
warmth around. From the left-hand 
side of this passage, the massive door 
of every cell on the story opens ; and 
from it alone can they be approached. 
There are three of these passages, and 
three of these ranges of cells, one above 
the other ; but in size, furniture and 
appearance, they are all precisely alike. 
Prior to the recorder's report being 
made, all the prisoners under sentence 
of death are removed from the day- 
room at five o'clock in the afternoon, 
and locked up in these cells, where they 
are allowed a candle until ten o'clock ; 
and here they remain until seven next 
morning. When the warrant for a 
prisoner's execution arrives, he is 
removed to the cells and confined in 
one of them until he leaves it for the 
scaffold. He is at liberty to walk in 
the yard ; but, both in his walks and 
in his cell, he is constantly attended 
by a turnkey who never leaves him on 
any pretence. 

We entered the first cell. It was a 
stone dungeon, eight feet long by six 
wide, with a bench at the upper end, 



* These two men were executed shortly 
afterwards. The other was respited duriug 
his majesty's pleasure. 



A VISIT TO NEWGATE. 



129 



under which were a ' common rug, 
a bible, and prayer-book. An iron 
candlestick was fixed into the wall at 
the side ; and a small high window in 
the back admitted as much air and 
light as could struggle in between a 
double row of heavy, crossed iron bars. 
It contained no other furniture of any 
description. 

Conceive the situation of a man, 
spending his last night on earth in this 
cell. Buoyed up with some vague and 
undefined hope of reprieve, he knew 
not why — indulging in som^vvild and 
visionary idea of escaping, he^knew not 
how — hour after hour of the three 
preceding days allowed him for pre- 
paration, has fled with a speed which 
no man living would deem possible, 
for none but this dying man can know. 
He has wearied his friends with en- 
treaties, exhausted the attendants with 
imp ortunities, neglected in his feverish 
restlessness the timely warnings of his 
spiritual consoler ; and, now that the 
illusion is at last dispelled, now that 
eternity is before him and guilt behind, 
now that his fears of death amount 
almost to madness, and an overwhelm- 
ing sense of his helpless, hopeless state 
rushes upon him, he is lost and stupified, 
and has neither thoughts to turn to, 
nor power to call upon, the Almighty 
Being, from whom alone he can seek 
mercy and forgiveness, and before 
whom his repentance can alone avail. 

Hours have glided by, and still he 
sits upon the same stone bench with 
folded arms, heedless alike of the fast 
decreasing time before him, and the 
urgent entreaties of the good man at 
his side. The feeble light is wasting 
gradually, and the deathlike stillness 
of the street without, broken only by 
the rumbling of some passing vehicle 
which ^echoes mournfully through the 
empty yards, warns him that the night 
is waning fast away. The deep bell 
of St. Paul's strikes — one ! He heard 
it ; it has roused him. Seven hours 
left ! He paces the narrow limits of 
his cell with rapid strides, cold drops 
of terror starting on his forehead, and 
every muscle of his frame quivering 
with agony. Seven hours I He suf- 

No. 181. s, 



fers himself to be led to his seat, 
mechanically takes the bible which is 
placed in his hand, and tries to read 
and listen. No : his thoughts will 
wander. The book is torn and soiled 
by use — and like the book he read his 
lessons in, at school, just forty years 
ago ! He has never bestowed a thought 
upon it, perhaps, since he left it as a 
child : and yet the place, the time, 
the room — nay, the very boys he 
played with, crowd as vividly before 
him as if they were scenes of yester- 
day ; and some forgotten phrase, some 
childish word, rings in his ears like 
the echo of one uttered but a minute 
since. The voice of the clergyman 
recals him to himself. He is reading 
from the sacred book its solemn 
promises of pardon for repentance, and 
its awful denunciation of obdurate 
men. He falls upon his knees and 
clasps his hands to pray. Hush ! 
what sound was that % He starts upon 
his feet. It cannot be two yet. 
Hark ! Two quarters have struck ; 
— the third — the fourth. It is ! Six 
hours left. Tell him not of repent- 
ance ! Six hours' repentance for eight 
times six years of guilt and sin ! He 
buries his face in his hands, and throws 
himself on the bench. 

Worn with watching and excite- 
ment, he sleeps, and the same unsettled 
state of mind pursues him in his 
dreams. An insupportable load is 
taken from his breast ; he is walking 
with his wife in a pleasant field, with 
the bright sky above them, and a 
fresh and boundless prospect on every 
side — how different from the stone 
walls of Newgate ! She is looking — 
not as she did when he saw her for 
the last time in that dreadful place, 
but as she used when he loved her — ■ 
long, long ago, before misery and ill- 
treatment had altered her looks, and 
•vice had changed his nature, and she 
is leaning upon his arm, and looking 
up into his face with tenderness and 
affection — and he does not strike her 
now, nor rudely shake her from him. 
And oh ! how glad he is to tell her all 
he had forgotten in that last hurried 
interview, and to fall on his knees 



130 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



before her and fervently beseech her 
pardon for all the unkindness and 
cruelty that wasted her form and 
broke her heart ! The scene suddenly 
changes. He is on his trial again : 
there are the judge and jury, and pro- 
secutors, and witnesses, just as they 
were before. How full the court is — 
what a sea of heads — with a gallows, 
too, and a scaffold — and how all those 
people stare at him! Verdict, " Guilty." 
No matter ; he will escape. 

The night is dark and cold, the gates 
have been left open, and in an instant 
he is in the street, flying from the 
scene of his imprisonment like the 
wind. The streets are cleared, the 
open fields are gained and the broad 
wide country lies before him. Onward 
he dashes in the midst of darkness, 



over hedge and ditch, through mud 
and pool, bounding from spot to spot 
with a speed and lightness, astonishing 
even to himself. At length he pauses ; 
he must be safe from pursuit now ; he 
will stretch himself on that bank and 
sleep till sunrise. 

A period of unconsciousness suc- 
ceeds. He wakes, cold and wretched. 
The dull gray light of morning is steal- 
ing into the cell, and falls upon the 
form of the attendant turnkey. Con- 
fused by his dreams, he starts from his 
uneasy bed in momentary uncertainty. 
It is bu^ momentary. Every object 
in the narrow cell is too frightfully 
real to admit of doubt or mistake. 
He is the condemned felon again, 
guilty and despairing ; and in two 
hours more will be dead. 



THOUGHTS ABOUT PEOPLE. 



131 



CHARACTERS. 



CHAPTER I. 



THOUGHTS ABOUT PEOPLE. 



It is strange with how little notice, 
good, bad, or indifferent, a man may 
live and die in London. He awakens 
no sympathy in the breast of any 
single person ; his existence is a 
matter of interest to no one save 
himself ; he cannot be said to be 
forgotten when he dies, for no one 
remembered him Avhen he was alive. 
There is a numerous class of people 
in this great metropolis who seem 
not to possess a single friend, and 
whom nobody appears to care for. 
Urged by imperative necessity in the 
first instance, they have resorted to 
London in search of employment, and 
the means of subsistence. It is hard, 
we know, to break the ties which bind 
us to our homes and friends, and 
harder still to efface the thousand 
recollections of happy days and old 
times, which have been slumbering 
in our bosoms for years, and only rush 
upon the mind, to bring before it asso- 
ciations connected with the friends we 
have left, the scenes we have beheld 
too probably for the last time, and the 
hopes we once cherished, but may en- 
tertain no more. These men, however, 
happily for themselves, have long for- 
gotten such thoughts. Old country 
friends have died or emigrated ; former 
correspondents have become lost, like 
themselves, in the crowd and turmoil 
of some busy city; and they have 
gradually settled down into mere 
passive creatures of habit and en- 
durance. 

We were seated in the enclosure of 
St. James's Park the other day, when 
our attention was attracted by a man 



whom we immediately put down in 
our own mind as one of this class. He 
was a tall, thin, pale person, in a 
black coat, scanty gray trousers, 
little pinched-up gaiters, and brown 
beaver gloves. He had an umbrella 
in his hand — not for use, for the day 
was fine — but, evidently, because he 
always carried one to the office in the 
morning. He walked up and down 
before the little patch of grass on which 
the chairs are placed for hire, not as 
if he were doing it for pleasure or 
recreation, but as if it were a matter 
of compulsion, just as he would walk 
to the office every morning from the 
back settlements of Islington. It was 
Monday ; he had escaped for four- 
and-twenty hours from the thraldom 
of the desk; and was walking here for 
exercise and amusement — perhaps for 
the first time in his life. We were 
inclined to think he had never had 
a holiday before, and that he did not 
know what to do with himself. Children 
were playing on the grass ; groups of 
people were loitering about, chatting 
and laughing ; but the man walked 
steadily up and' down, unheeding and 
unheeded, his spare pale face looking 
as if it were incapable of bearing the 
expression of curiosity or interest. 

There was something in the man's 
manner and appearance which told us, 
we fancied, his whole life, or rather 
his whole day, for a man of this sort 
has no variety of days. We thought 
we almost saw the dingy little back 
office into which he walks every morn- 
ing, hanging his hat on the same peg, 
and placing his legs beneath the same 
k2 



132 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



desk : first, taking off that black coat 
which lasts the year through, and 
putting on the one which did duty 
last year, and which he keeps in his 
desk to save the other. There he sits 
till five o'clock, working on, all day, as 
regularly as the dial over the mantel- 
piece, whose loud ticking is as mono- 
tonous as his whole existence : only 
raising his head when some one enters 
the counting-house, or when, in the 
midst of some difficult calculation, he 
looks up to the ceiling as if there were 
inspiration in the dusty skylight with 
a green knot in the centre of every 
pane of glass. About five, or half- 
past, he slowly dismounts from his 
accustomed stool, and again changing 
his coat, proceeds to his usual dining- 
place, somewhere near Bucklersbury. 
The waiter recites the bill of fare in a 
rather confidential manner — for he is 
a regular customer — and after inquir- 
ing " What 's in the best cut 2 " and 
"What was up last?" he orders a 
small plate of roast beef, with greens, 
and half-a-pint of porter. He has a 
small plate to-day, because greens are 
a penny more than potatoes, and he 
had "two breads" yesterday, with 
the additional enormity of "a cheese" 
the day before. This 'important point 
settled", he hangs up his hat — he 
took it off the moment he sat down — 
and bespeaks the paper after the next 
gentleman. If he can get it while he 
is at dinner, he eats with much 
greater zest ; balancing it against the 
water-bottle, and eating a bit of beef, 
and reading a line or two, alter- 
nately. Exactly at five minutes be- 
fore the hour is up, he produces a 
shilling, pays the reckoning, carefully 
deposits the change in his waistcoat- 
pocket (first deducting a penny for 
the waiter), and returns to the office, 
from which, if it is not foreign post 
night, he again sallies forth, in about 
half an hour. He then walks home, 
at his usual pace, to his little back 
room at Islington, where he has his 
tea ; perhaps solacing himself during 
the meal with the conversation of his 
landlady's little boy, whom he occa- 
sional! v rewards with a penny, for 



I solving problems in simple addition. 
I Sometimes, there is a letter or two to 
i take up to his employer's, in Russell- 
square ; and then, the wealthy man of 
business, hearing his voice, calls out 
! from the dining-parlour, — a Come in, 
j Mr. Smith :" and Mr. Smith, putting his 
hat at the feet of one of the hall chairs, 
I walks timidly in, and being condescend- 
j ingly desired to sit down, carefully 
j tucks his legs under his chair, and 
I sits at a considerable distance from 
j the table while he drinks the glass of 
sherry which is poured out -for him by 
the eldest boy, and after drinking 
which, he backs and slides out of the 
room, in a state of nervous agitation 
from which he does not perfectly 
recover, until he finds himself once 
more in the Islington-road. Poor, 
harmless creatures such men are ; 
contented but not happy ; broken- 
spirited and humbled, they may feel no 
pain, but they never know pleasure. 

Compare these men with another 
class of beings who, like them, have 
neither friend nor companion, but 
whose position in society is the result 
of their own choice. These are gene- 
rally old fellows with white heads and 
red faces, addicted to port wine and 
Hessian boots, who from some cause, 
real or imaginary — generally the 
former, the excellent reason being that 
they are rich, and their relations 
poor — grow suspicious of every body, 
and do the misanthropical in chambers, 
taking great delight in thinking them- 
selves unhappy, and making every 
body they come near, miserable. You 
may see such men as these, any where; 
you will know them at coffee-houses 
by their discontented exclamations and 
the luxury of their dinners ; at 
theatres, by their always sitting in the 
same place and looking with a jaun- 
diced eye on all the young people near 
them ; at church, by the pomposity 
with which they enter, and the loud 
tone in which they repeat the 
responses ; at parties, by their getting 
cross at whist and hating music. An 
old fellow of this kind will have his 
chambers splendidly furnished, and 
collect books, plate, and pictures about 



THOUGHTS ABOUT PEOPLE. 



133 



him in profusion ; not so much for his 
own gratification, as to be superior to 
those who have the desire, but not the 
means, to compete with him. He 
belongs to two or three clubs, and is 
envied, and flattered, and hated by 
the members of them all. Sometimes 
he will be appealed to by a poor 
relation — a married nephew perhaps 
— for some little assistance : and 
then he will declaim with honest in- 
dignation on the improvidence of 
young married people, the worthless- 
ness of a wife, the insolence of having 
a family, the atrocity of getting into 
debt with a hundred and twenty-five 
pounds a- year, and other unpardonable 
crimes ; winding up his exhortations 
with a complacent review of his own 
conduct, and a delicate allusion to 
parochial relief. He dies, some day 
after dinner, of apoplexy, having be- 
queathed his property to a Public 
Society, and the Institution erects a 
tablet to his memory, expressive of their 
admiration of his Christian conduct in 
this world, and their comfortable con- 
viction of his happiness in the next. 

But, next to our very particular 
friends, hackney-coachmen, cabmen 
and cads, whom we admire in propor- 
tion to the extent of their cool impu- 
dence and perfect self-possession, 
there is no class of people who amuse 
us more than London apprentices. 
They are no longer an organised body, 
bound down by solemn compact to 
terrify his majesty's subjects whenever 
it pleases them to take offence in their 
heads and staves in their hands. 
They are only bound, now, by inden- 
tures ; and, as to their valour, it is 
easily restrained by the wholesome 
dread of the New Police, and a per- 
spective view of a damp station-house, 
terminating in a police-office and a 
reprimand. They are still, however, 
a peculiar class, and not the less plea- 
sant for being inoffensive. Can any 
one fail to have noticed them in the 
streets on Sunday ? And were there 
ever such harmless efforts at the 
grand and magnificent as the young 
fellows display ! We walked down 
the Strand, a Sunday or two ago, 



behind a little group ; and they fur- 
nished food for our amusement the 
whole way. They had come out of 
some part of the city ; it was between 
three and four o'clock in the after- 
noon ; and they were on their way 
to the Park. There were four of 
them, all arm-in-arm, with white kid 
gloves like so many bridegrooms, light 
trousers of unprecedented patterns, 
and coats for which the English 
language has yet no name — a kind of 
cross between a great-coat and a sur- 
tout, with the collar of the one, the 
skirts of the other, and pockets pecu- 
liar to themselves. 

Each of the gentlemen carried a 
thick stick, with a large tassel at the 
top, which he occasionally twirled 
gracefully round ; and the whole four, 
by way of looking easy and uncon- 
cerned, were walking with a paralytic 
swagger irresistibly ludicrous. One 
of the party had a watch about the 
size and shape of a reasonable Ribstone 
pippin, jammed into his waistcoat- 
pocket, which he carefully compared 
with the clocks at St. Clement's and 
the New Church, the illuminated clock 
at Exeter 'Change, the clock of St. 
Martin's Church, and the clock of the 
Horse Guards. When they at last 
arrived in Saint James's Park, the 
member of the party who had the best 
made boots on, hired a second chair- 
expressly for his feet, and flung him- 
self on this two-pennyworth of sylvan 
luxury with an air which levelled all 
distinctions between Brookes's and 
Snooks's, Crockford's and Bagnigge 
Wells. 

We may smile at such people, but 
they can never excite our anger. They- 
are usually on the best terms with 
themselves, and it follows almost as a 
matter of course, in good humour with 
every one about them. Besides, they 
are always the faint reflection of higher 
lights ; and, if they do display a little 
occasional foolery in their own proper- 
persons, it is surely more tolerable 
than precocious puppyism in the 
Quadrant, whiskered dandyism in : 
Regent-street and Pall-mall, or gal- 
lantry in its dotage any where. 



134 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



CHAPTER II. 

A CHRISTMAS DINNER. 



Christmas time ! That man must be 
a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast 
something like a jovial feeling is not 
roused — in whose mind some pleasant 
associations are not awakened — by the 
recurrence of Christmas. There are 
people who will tell you that Christ- 
mas is not to them what it used to be; 
that each succeeding Christmas has 
found some cherished hope, or happy 
prospect, of the year before, dimmed 
or passed away; that the present only 
serves to remind them of reduced 
circumstances and straitened incomes 
— of the feasts they once bestowed on 
hollow friends, and of the cold looks that 
meet them now, in adversity and mis- 
fortune. Never heed such dismal 
reminiscences. There are few men 
who have lived long enough in the 
world, who cannot call up such 
thoughts any day in the year. Then 
do not select the merriest of the three 
hundred and sixty-five, for your dole- 
ful recollections, but draw your chair 
nearer the blazing fire — fill the glass 
and send round the song — and if your 
room be smaller than it was a dozen 
years ago, or if your glass be filled 
with reeking punch, instead of 
sparkling wine, put a good face on the 
matter, and empty it off-hand, and 
fill another, and troll off the old ditty 
you used to sing, and thank God it 's 
no worse. Look on the merry faces 
of your children (if you have any) as 
they sit round the fire. One little 
seat may be empty ; one slight form 
that gladdened the father's heart, and 
roused the mother's pride to look upon, 
may not be there. Dwell not upon the 
past ; think not that one short year 
ago, the fair child now resolving into 
dust, sat before you, with the bloom of 
health upon its cheek, and the gaiety 
of infancy in its joyous eye. Reflect 
upon your present blessings — of which 
every man has many — not on your 



past misfortunes, of which all men 
have some. Fill your glass again, with 
a merry face and contented heart. 
Our life on it, but your Christmas 
shall be merry, and your new year a 
happy one ! 

Who can be insensible to the out- 
pourings of good feeling, and the honest 
interchange of affectionate attachment, 
which abound at this season of the 
year? A Christmas family-party ! We 
know nothing in nature more delight- 
ful ! There seems a magic in the very 
name of Christmas. Petty jealousies 
and discords are forgotten ; social feel- 
ings are awakened, in bosoms to which 
they have long been strangers ; father 
and son, or brother and sister, who 
have met and passed with averted 
gaze, or a look of cold recognition, for 
months before, proffer and return the 
cordial embrace, and bury their past 
animosities in their present happiness. 
Kindly hearts that have yearned to- 
wards each other, but have been with- 
held by false notions of pride and self- 
dignity, are again reunited, and all is 
kindness and benevolence ! Would 
that Christmas lasted the whole year 
through (as it ought), and that the 
prejudices and passions which deform 
our better nature, were never called 
into action among those to whom 
they should ever be strangers ! 

The Christmas family-party that we 
mean, is not a mere assemblage of 
relations, got up at a week or two's 
notice, originating this year, having no 
family precedent in the last, and not 
likely to be repeated in the next. No. 
It is an annual gathering of all the ac- 
cessible members of the family, young 
or old, rich or poor; and all the children 
look forward to it, for two months 
beforehand, in a fever of anticipation. 
Formerly, it was held at grandpapa's ; 
but grandpapa getting old, and grand- 
mamma getting old too, and rather 



A CHRISTMAS DINNER. 



135 



infirm, they have given up housekeep- 
ing, and domesticated themselves with 
uncle George ; so, the party always 
takes place at uncle George's house, 
but grandmamma sends in most of the 
good things, and grandpapa always will 
toddle down, all the way to Newgate- 
market, to buy the turkey, which he 
engages a porter to bring home behind 
him in triumph, always insisting on 
the man's being rewarded with a glass 
of spirits, over and above his hire, to 
drink " a merry Christmas and a happy 
new year" to aunt George. As to 
grandmamma, she is very secret and 
mysterious for two or three days be- 
forehand, but not sufficiently so, to 
prevent rumours getting afloat that she 
has purchased a beautiful new cap with 
pink ribbons for each of the servants, 
together with sundry books, and pen- 
knives, and pencil-cases, for the younger 
branches ; to say nothing of divers 
secret additions to the order originally 
given by aunt George at the pastry- 
cook's, such as another dozen of mince- 
pies for the dinner, and a large plum- 
cake for the children. 

On Christmas-eve, grandmamma is 
always in excellent spirits, and after 
employing all the children, during the 
day, in stoning the plums, and all that, 
insists, regularly every year, on uncle 
George coming down into the kitchen, 
taking off his coat, and stirring the 
pudding for half an hour or so, which 
uncle George good-humouredly does to 
the vociferous delight of the children 
and servants. The evening con- 
cludes with a glorious game of blind- 
man's-buff, in an early stage of which 
grandpapa takes great care to be caught, 
in order that he may have an oppor- 
tunity of displaying his dexterity. 

On the following morning, the old 
couple, with as many of the children as 
the pew will hold, go to church in great 
state : leaving aunt George at home 
dusting decanters and filling castors, 
and uncle George carrying bottles into 
the dining-parlour, and calling for cork- 
screws, and getting into everybody's 
way. 

When the church-party return to 
lunch, grandpapa produces a small 



sprig of misletoe from his pocket, and 
tempts the boys to kiss their little 
cousins under it — a proceeding which 
affords both the boys and the old 
gentleman unlimited satisfaction, but 
which rather outrages grandmamma's 
ideas of decorum, until grandpapa says, 
that when he was just thirteen years 
and three months old, he kissed grand- 
mamma under a misletoe too, on which 
the children clap their hands, and laugh 
very heartily, as do aunt George and 
uncle George ; and grandmamma looks * 
pleased, and says, with a benevolent 
smile, that grandpapa was an impudent 
young dog, on which the children 
laugh very heartily again, and grand- 
papa more heartily than any of them. 

But all these diversions are nothing 
to the subsequent excitement when 
grandmamma in a high cap, and slate- 
coloured silk gown ; and grandpapa with 
a beautifully plaited shirt-frill, and 
white neckerchief ; seat themselves on 
one side of the drawing-room fire, with 
uncle George's children and little cou- 
sins innumerable, seated in the front, 
waiting the arrival of the expected 
visiters. Suddenly a hackney-coach 
is heard to stop, and uncle George, 
who has been looking out of the 
window, exclaims "Here's Jane!" 
on which the children rush to the door, 
and helter-skelter down stairs ; and 
uncle Robert and aunt Jane, and the 
dear little baby, and the nurse, and the 
whole party, are ushered up stairs 
amidst tumultuous shouts of " Oh, my !" 
from the children, and frequently re- 
peated warnings not to hurt baby from 
the nurse. And grandpapa takes the 
child, and grandmamma kisses her 
daughter, and the confusion of this 
first entry has scarcely subsided, when 
some other aunts and uncles with more 
cousins arrive, and the grown-up cou- 
sins flirt with each other, and so do 
the little cousins too, for that matter 
and nothing is to be heard but a con- 
fused din of talking, laughing, and 
merriment. 

A hesitating double knock at the 
street-door, heard during a momentary 
pause in the conversation, excites a 
general inquiry of " Who 's that V and 



136 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



two or three children, who have been 
standing at the window, announce in a 
low voice, that it 's " poor aunt Mar- 
garet." Upon which, aunt George leaves 
the room to welcome the new comer ; 
and grandmamma draws herself up, 
rather stiff and stately; for Margaret 
married a poor man without her con- 
sent, and poverty not being a suffi- 
ciently weighty punishment for her 
offence, has been discarded by her 
friends, and debarred the society of 
her dearest relatives. But Christmas 
has come round, and the unkind feel- 
ings that have struggled against better 
dispositions during the year, have 
melted away before its genial influence, 
like half-formed ice beneath the morn- 
ing sun. It is not difficult in a moment 
of angry feeling for a parent to de- 
nounce a disobedient child ; but, to 
banish her at a period of general good- 
will and hilarity, from the hearth, round 
which she has sat on so many anni- 
versaries of the same day, expanding by 
slow degrees from infancy to girlhood, 
and then bursting, almost impercep- 
tibly, into a woman, is widely different. 
The air of conscious rectitude, and 
cold forgiveness, which the old lady 
has assumed, sits ill upon her ; and 
when the poor girl is led in by her 
sister, pale in looks and broken in 
hope — not from poverty, for that she 
could bear, but from the consciousness 
of undeserved neglect, and unmerited 
unkindness — it is easy to see how much 
of it is assumed. A momentary pause 
succeeds ; the girl breaks suddenly 
from her sister and throws herself, 
sobbing, on her mother's neck. The 
father steps hastily forward, and takes 
her husband's hand. Friends crowd 
round to offer their hearty congratula- 
tions, and happiness and harmony again 
prevail. 

As to the dinner, it 's perfectly de- 
lightful — nothing goes wrong, and 
everybody is in the very best of spirits, 
and disposed to please and be pleased. 
Grandpapa relates a circumstantial 



account of the purchase of the turkey, 
with a slight digression relative to the 
purchase of previous turkeys, on former 
Christmas-days, which grandmamma 
corroborates in the minutest particular. 
Uncle George tells stories, and carves 
poultry, and takes wine, and jokes with 
the children at the side-table, and winks 
at the cousins that are making love, or 
being made love to, and exhilarates 
everybody with his good humour and 
hospitality; and when, at last, a stout 
servant, staggers in with a gigantic 
pudding, with a sprig of holly in the 
top, there is such a laughing, and 
shouting, and clapping of little chubby 
hands, and kicking up of fat dumpy 
legs, as can only be equalled by the 
applause with which the astonishing 
feat of pouring lighted brandy into 
mince-pies, is received by the younger 
visiters. Then the dessert ! — and the 
wine ! — and the fun ! Such beautiful 
speeches, and suck songs, from aunt 
Margaret's husband, who turns out to 
be such a nice man, and so attentive to 
grandmamma ! Even grandpapa not 
only sings his annual song with unpre- 
cedented vigour, but on being honoured 
with an unanimous encore, according to 
annual custom, actually comes out with 
a new one which nobody but grand- 
mamma ever heard before ; and a 
young scape-grace of a cousin, who 
has been in some disgrace with the 
old people, for certain heinous sins of 
omission and commission — neglecting 
to call, and persisting in drinking 
Burton ale — astonishes everybody into 
convulsions of laughter by volunteering 
the most extraordinary comic songs 
that ever were heard. And thus the 
evening passes, in a strain of rational 
good-will and cheerfulness, doing more 
to awaken the sympathies of every 
member of the party in behalf of his 
neighbour, and to perpetuate their good 
feeling during the ensuing year, than 
half the homilies that have ever been. ■ 
written, by half the Divines that have 
ever lived. 



THE NEW YEAR. 



137 



CHAPTER III. 



THE NEW YEAR. 



Next to Christmas-day, the most 
pleasant annual epoch in existence is 
the advent of the New Year. There 
are a lachrymose set of people who 
usher in the New Year with watching 
and fasting, as if they were bound to 
attend as chief mourners at the obse- 
quies of the old one. Now, we cannot 
but think it a great deal more compli- 
mentary, both to the old year that has 
rolled away, and to the New Year that 
is just beginning to dawn upon us, to 
see the old fellow out, and the new one 
in, with gaiety and glee. 

There must have been some few 
occurrences in the past year to which 
we can look back, with a smile of 
cheerful recollection, if not with a 
feeling of heartfelt thankfulness. And 
we are bound by every rule of justice 
and equity to give the New Year 
credit for being a good one, until he 
proves himself unworthy the confi- 
dence we repose in him. 

This is our view of the matter ; and 
entertaining it, notwithstanding our 
respect for the old year, one of the 
few remaining moments of whose 
existence passes away with every 
word we write, here we are, seated by 
our fireside on this last night of the 
old year, one thousand eight hundred 
and thirty-six, penning this article 
with as jovial a face as if nothing extra- 
ordinary had happened, or was about 
to happen, to disturb our good humour. 

Hackney-coaches and carriages keep 
rattling up the street and down the 
street in rapid succession, conveying, 
doubtless, smartly-dressed coachfuls 
to crowded parties ; loud and repeated 
double knocks at the house with green 
blinds, opposite, announce to the whole 
neighbourhood that there 's one large 
party in the street at all events ; and 
we saw through the window, and 
through the fog too, till it grew so 
thick that we rung for candles, and 



drew our curtains, pastrycooks' men 
with green boxes on their heads, and 
rout-furniture- warehouse-carts, with 
cane seats and French lamps, hurry- 
ing to the numerous houses where an 
annual festival is held in honour of 
the occasion. 

We can fancy one of these parties, 
we think, as well as if Ave were duly 
dress-coated and pumped, and had just 
been announced at the drawing-room 
door. 

Take the house with the green blinds 
for instance. We know it is a qua- 
drille party, because we saw some men 
taking up the front drawing-room 
carpet while we sat at breakfast this 
morning, and if further evidence be- 
required, and we must tell the truth, 
we just now saw one of the young 
ladies " doing " another of the young 
ladies' hair, near one of the bed-room 
windows, in an unusual style of splen- 
dour, which nothing else but a qua- 
drille party could possibly justify. 

The master of the house with the 
green blinds is in a public office ; we 
know the fact by the cut of his coat, 
the tie of his neckcloth, and the self- 
satisfaction of his gait — the very green 
blinds themselves have a Somerset- 
House air about them. 

Hark ! — a cab ! That 's a junior 
clerk in the same office ; a tidy sort 
of young man, with a tendency to cold 
and corns, who comes in a pair of 
boots with black cloth fronts, and 
brings his shoes in his coat -pocket, 
which shoes he is at this very moment 
putting on in the hall. Now, he is 
announced by the man in the passage 
to another man in a blue coat, who 
is a disguised messenger from the 
office. 

The man on the first landing pre- 
cedes him to the drawing-room door. 
" Mr. Tupple ! " shouts the messenger. 
"How are you, Tupple?" says the 



138 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



master of the house, advancing from 
the fire, before which he has been 
talking politics and airing himself. 
« My dear, this is Mr. Tupple (a 
courteous salute from the lady of the 
house) ; Tupple, my eldest daughter ; 
Julia, my dear, Mr. Tupple ; Tupple, 
my other daughters ; my son, sir ; " 
Tupple rubs his hands very hard, and 
smiles as if it were all capital fun, and 
keeps constantly bowing and turning 
himself round, till the whole family have 
been introduced, when he glides into 
a chair at the corner of the sofa, and 
opens a miscellaneous conversation 
with the young ladies upon the wea- 
ther, and the theatres, and the old 
year, and the last new murder, and 
the balloon, and the ladies' sleeves, 
and the festivities of the season, and a 
great many other topics of small talk. 

More double knocks ! what an ex- 
tensive party ; what an incessant 
hum of conversation and general 
sipping of coffee ! We see Tupple 
now, in our mind's eye, in the 
height of his glory. He has just 
handed that stout old lady's cup to 
the servant ; and now, he dives among 
the crowd of young men by the door, 
to intercept the other servant, and 
secure the muffin-plate for the old 
lady's daughter, before he leaves the 
room ; and now, as he passes the sofa 
on his way back, he bestows a glance of 
recognition and patronage upon the 
young ladies, as condescending and 
familiar as if he had known them from 
infancy. 

Charming person Mr. Tupple — per- 
fect ladies' man — such a delightful 
companion, too ! Laugh ! — nobody 
ever understood papa's jokes half so 
well as Mr. Tupple, who laughs him- 
self into convulsions at every fresh 
burst of facetiousness. Most delight- 
ful partner ! talks through the whole 
set ! and although he does seem at 
first rather gay and frivolous, so 
romantic and with so much feeling ! 
Quite a love. No great favourite with 
the young men, certainly, who sneer 
at, and affect to despise him ; but 
every body knows that's only envy, 
and they needn't give themselves the 



trouble to depreciate his merits at 
any rate, for Ma says he shall be asked 
to every future dinner-party, if it's 
only to talk to people between the 
courses, and distract their attention 
when there 's any unexpected delay in 
the kitchen. 

At supper, Mr. Tupple shows to 
still greater advantage than he has 
done throughout the evening, and 
when Pa requests every one to fill 
their glasses for the purpose of drink- 
ing happiness throughout the year, 
Mr. Tupple is so droll : insisting on all 
the young ladies having their glasses 
filled, notwithstanding their repeated 
assurances that they never can, by 
any possibility, think of emptying 
them : and subsequently begging per- 
mission to say a few words on the sen- 
timent which has just been uttered by 
Pa — when he makes one of the most 
brilliant and poetical speeches that 
can possibly be imagined, about the 
old year and new one. After the 
toast has been drunk, and when the 
ladies have retired, Mr. Tupple re- 
quests that every gentleman will do 
him the favour of filling his glass, for 
he has a toast to propose : on which 
all the gentlemen cry " Hear ! hear ! " 
and pass the decanters accordingly : 
and Mr. Tupple being informed by the 
master of the house that they are all 
charged, and waiting for his toast, 
rises, and begs to remind the gentle- 
men present, how much they have 
been delighted by the dazzling array 
of elegance and beauty which the 
drawing-room has exhibited that night, 
and how their senses have been 
charmed, and their hearts captivated, 
by the bewitching concentration of 
female loveliness which that very 
room has so recently displayed. (Loud 
cries of " Hear ! ") Much as he 
(Tupple) would be disposed to deplore 
the absence of the ladies, on other 
grounds, he cannot but derive some 
consolation from the reflection that 
the very circumstance of their not 
being present, enables him to propose 
a toast, which he would have other- 
wise been prevented from giving — 
that toast he begs to say is— " The 



THE NEW YEAR. 



139 



Ladies 1 " (Great applause.) The 
Ladies ! among whom the fascinating 
daughters of their excellent host, are 
alike conspicuous for their beauty, 
then.' accomplishments, and their ele- 
gance. He begs them to drain a 
bumper to " The Ladies, and a happy 
new year to them ! " (Prolonged 1 ap- 
probation ; above which the noise of 
the ladies dancing the Spanish dance 
among themselves, over head, is dis- 
tinctly audible.) 

The applause consequent on this 
toast, has scarcely subsided, when a 
young gentleman in a pink under- 
waistcoat, sitting towards the bottom 
of the table, is observed to grow very 
restless and fidgety, and to evince 
strong indications of some latent de- 
sire to give vent to his feelings in a 
speech, which the wary Tupple at 
once perceiving, determines to forestal 
by speaking himself. He, therefore, 
rises again, with an air of solemn im- 
portance, and trusts he may be per- 
mitted to propose another toast 
(unqualified approbation, and Mr. 
Tupple proceeds). He is sure they 
must all be deeply impressed with the 
hospitality — he may say the splendour 
— with which they have been that 
night received by their worthy host 
and hostess. (Unbounded applause.) 
Although this is the first occasion 
on which he has had the pleasure 
and delight of sitting at that board, he 
has known his friend Dobble long and 
intimately ; he has been connected 
with him in business — he wishes every 
body present knew Dobble as well as 
he does. (A cough from the host.) 
He (Tupple) can lay his hand upon 
his (Tupple's) heart, and declare his 
confident belief that a better man, a 
better husband, a better father, a 
better brother, a better son, a better 
relation in any relation of life, than 
Dobble, never existed. (Loud cries 
of " Hear ! ") They have seen him 
to-night in the peaceful bosom of his 
family : they should see him in the 
morning, in the trying duties of his 
office. Calm in the perusal of the 
morning papers, uncompromising in 
the signature of his name, dignified in 



his replies to the inquiries of stranger 
applicants, deferential in his behaviour 
to his superiors, majestic in his deport- 
ment to the messengers. (Cheers.) 
When he bears this merited testimony 
to the excellent qualities of his friend 
Dobble, what can he say in approach- 
ing such a subject as Mrs. Dobble ? 
Is it requisite for him to expatiate on 
the qualities of that amiable woman ? 
No ; he will spare his friend Dobble's 
feelings ; he will spare the feelings of 
his friend — if he will allow him to hav§ 
the honour of calling him so — Mr. 
Dobble, junior. (Here Mr. Dobble, 
junior, who has been previously distend- 
ing his mouth to a considerable width, 
by thrusting a particularly fine orange 
into that feature, suspends operations, 
and assumes a proper appearance of 
intense melancholy.) He will simply 
say — and he is quite certain it is a 
sentiment in which all who hear him 
will readily concur — that his friend- 
Dobble is as superior to any man he 
ever knew, as Mrs. Dobble is far be- 
yond any woman he ever saw (except 
her daughters) ; and he will conclude 
by proposing their worthy " Host and 
Hostess, and may they live to enjoy 
many more new years ! " 

The toast is drunk with acclamation; 
Dobble returns thanks, and the whole 
party rejoin the ladies in the dra wing- 
room. Young men who were too 
bashful to dance before supper, find 
tongues and partners ; the musicians 
exhibit unequivocal symptoms of having 
drunk the new year in, while the com- 
pany were out ; and dancing is kept 
up, until far in the first morning of the 
new year. 

We have scarcely written the last 
word of the previous sentence, when 
the first stroke of twelve, peals from 
the neighbouring churches. There 
certainly — we must confess it now — is 
something awful in the sound. Strictly 
speaking, it may not be more impressive 
now, than at any other time; for the 
hours steal as swiftly on, at other 
periods, and their flight is little heeded. 
But, we measure man's life by years, 
and it is a solemn knell that warns us 
we have passed another of the land- 



140 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



marks which stand between us and I arrival of a new year, we may be in- 
the grave. Disguise it as we may, the | sensible alike of the timely warning we 
reflection will force itself on our minds, j have so often neglected, and of all the 
that when the next bell announces the | warm feelings that glow within us now. 



CHAPTER IV. 



MISS EVANS AND THE EAGLE. 



Mr. Samuel Wilkins was a carpenter, 
a journeyman carpenter of small di- 
mensions, decidedly below the middle 
size — bordering, perhaps, upon the 
dwarfish. His face was round and 
shining, and his hair carefully twisted 
into the outer corner of each eye, till 
it formed a variety of that description 
of semi-curls, usually known as " ag- 
gerawators." His earnings were all- 
sufficient for his wants, varying from 
eighteen shillings to one pound five, 
weekly — his manner undeniable — his 
sabbath waistcoats dazzling. No won- 
der that, with these qualifications, 
Samuel Wilkins found favour in the 
eyes of the other sex : many women 
have been captivated by far less sub- 
stantial qualifications. But, Samuel 
was proof against their blandishments, 
until at length his eyes rested on those 
of a Being for whom, from that time 
forth, he felt fate had destined him. 
He came, and conquered — proposed, 
and was accepted — loved, and was 
beloved. Mr. Wilkins " kept com- 
pany " with Jemima Evans. 

Miss Evans (or Ivins, to adopt the 
pronunciation most in vogue with her 
circle of acquaintance) had adopted in 
early life the useful pursuit of shoe- 
binding, to which she had afterwards 
superadded the occupation of a straw- 
bonnet maker. Herself, her maternal 
parent, and two sisters, formed an har- 
monious quartett in the most secluded 
portion of Camden-town ; and here it 
was that Mr. Wilkins presented him- 
self, one Monday afternoon, in his best 
attire, with his face more shining and 
his waistcoat more bright than either 



had ever appeared before. The family 
were just going to tea, and were so 
glad to see him. It was quite a little 
feast ; two ounces of seven-and-six- 
penny green, and a quarter of a pound 
of the best fresh ; and Mr. Wilkins 
had brought a pint of shrimps, neatly 
folded up in a clean belcher, to give a 
zest to the meal, and propitiate Mrs. 
Ivins. Jemima was " cleaning her- 
self " up stairs ; so Mr. Samuel Wil- 
kins sat down and talked domestic 
economy with Mrs. Ivins, whilst the 
two youngest Miss Ivinses poked bits 
of lighted brown paper between the 
bars under the kettle, to make the 
water boil for tea. 

" I wos a thinking," said Mr. Samuel 
Wilkins, during a pause in the con- 
versation — " I wos a thinking of taking 
J'mima to the Eagle to night." — " O 
my ! " exclaimed Mrs. Ivins. " Lor ! 
how nice !" said the youngest Miss 
Ivins. " Well, I declare !" added the 
youngest Miss Ivins but one. "Tell 
J'mima to put on her white muslin, 
Tilly," screamed Mrs. Ivins, with 
motherly anxiety ; and down came 
J'mima herself soon afterwards in a 
white muslin gown carefully hooked 
and eyed, a little red shawl, plenti- 
fully pinned, a white straw bonnet 
trimmed with red ribbons, a small 
necklace, a large pair of bracelets,. 
Denmark satin shoes, and open- 
worked stockings; white cotton gloves 
on her fingers, and a cambric pocket- 
handkerchief, carefully folded up, in her 
hand — all quite genteel and ladylike. 
And away went Miss Jemima Ivins 
and Mr. Samuel Wilkins, and a dress 



MISS EVANS AND THE EAGLE. 



141 



cane, with a gilt knob at .the top, to 
the admiration and envy of the street 
in general, and to the high gratification 
of Mrs. Ivins, and the two youngest 
Miss Ivinses in particular 1 . They had 
no sooner turned into the Pancras road, 
than who should Miss J'mima Ivins 
stumble upon, by the most fortunate 
accident in the world, but a young lady 
as she knew, with her young man ! — And 
it is so strange how things do turn out 
sometimes — they were actually going 
to the Eagle too. So Mr. Samuel 
Wilkins was introduced to Miss J'mima 
Ivins's friend's young man, and they all 
walked on together, talking, and laugh- 
ing, and joking away like any thing ; 
and when they got as far as Penton- 
ville, Miss Ivins's friend's young man 
would have the ladies go into the 
Crown, to taste some shrub, which, 
after a great blushing and giggling, 
and hiding of faces in elaborate pocket- 
handkerchiefs, they consented to do. 
Having tasted it once, they were easily 
prevailed upon to taste it again ; and 
they sat out in the garden tasting 
shrub, and looking at the Busses alter- 
nately, till it was just the proper time to 
go to the Eagle; and then they resumed 
their journey, and walked very fast, for 
fear they should lose the beginning of 
the concert in the rotunda. 

" How ev'nly ! " said Miss Jemima 
Ivins, and Miss Jemima Ivins's friend, 
both at once, when they had passed 
the gate and were fairly inside the 
gardens. There were the walks, beau- 
tifully gravelled and planted — and the 
refreshment-boxes, painted and orna- 
mented like so many snuff-boxes — and 
the variegated lamps shedding their 
rich light upon the company's heads — 
and the place for dancing ready 
chalked for the company's feet — and a 
Moorish band playing at one end of 
the gardens — and an opposition mili- 
tary band playing away at the other. 
Then, the waiters were rushing to and 
fro with glasses of negus, and glasses of 
brandy-and-water, and bottles of ale, 
and bottles of stout ; and ginger-beer 
was going off in one place, and practical 
jokes were going on in another ; and 
people were crowding to the door of the 



Rotunda; and in short the whole scene 
was, as Miss J'mima Ivins, inspired 
by the novelty, or the shrub, or both, 
observed — " one of dazzling excite- 
ment." As to the concert-room, 
never was any thing half so splendid. 
There was an orchestra for the singers, 
all paint, gilding, and plate-glass ; and 
such an organ ! Miss J'mima Ivins's 
friend's young man whispered it had 
cost "four hundred pound," which 
Mr. Samuel Wilkins said was " not 
dear neither ;" an opinion in whicli 
the ladies perfectly coincided. The 
audience were seated on elevated 
benches round the room, and crowded 
into every part of it ; and every body 
was eating and drinking as comfort- 
ably as possible. Just before the con- 
cert commenced, Mr. Samuel Wilkins 
ordered two glasses of rum-and-water 
"warm with — " and two slices of 
lemon, for himself and the other 
young man, together with " a pint o' 
sherry wine for the ladies, and some 
sweet carrawayseed biscuits ;" and 
they would have been quite comfortable 
and happy, only a strange gentleman 
with large whiskers would stare at 
Miss J'mima Ivins, and another gentle- 
man in a plaid waistcoat would wink 
at Miss J'mima Ivins's friend ; on 
which Miss J'mima Ivins's friend's 
young man exhibited symptoms of 
boiling over, and began to mutter 
about " people's imperence," and 
" swells out o' luck ; " and to intimate, 
in oblique terms, a vague intention of 
knocking somebody's head off ; which 
he was only prevented from announcing 
more emphatically, by both Miss 
J'mima Ivins and her friend threaten- 
ing to faint away on the spot if he said 
another word. 

The concert commenced — overture 
on the organ. " How solemn ! " ex- 
claimed Miss J'mima Ivins, glancing, 
perhaps unconsciously, at the gentle- 
man with the whiskers. Mr. Samuel 
Wilkins who had been muttering apart 
for some time past, as if he were 
holding a confidential conversation 
with the gilt knob of the dress 
cane, breathed hard — breathing venge- 
ance, perhaps, — but said nothing. 



142 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



"The soldier tired," Miss Somebody 
in white satin. " Ancore ! " cried 
Miss J'mima Ivins's friend. " An- 
core ! " shouted the gentleman in the 
plaid waistcoat immediately, hammer- 
ing the table with a stout-bottle. Miss 
J'mima Ivins's friend's young man 
eyed the man behind the waistcoat 
from head to foot, and cast a look of 
interrogative contempt towards Mr. 
Samuel Wilkins. Comic song, accom- 
panied on the organ. Miss J'mima 
Ivins was convulsed with laughter — 
so was the man with the whiskers. 
Every thing the ladies did, the plaid 
waistcoat and whiskers did, by way 
of expressing unity of sentiment and 
congeniality of soul ; and Miss J'mima 
Ivins, and Miss J'mima Ivins's friend, 
grew lively and talkative, as Mr. 
Samuel Wilkins, and Miss J'mima 
Ivins's friend's young man, grew mo- 
rose and surly in inverse proportion. 

Now, if the matter had ended here, 
the little party might soon have re- 
covered their former equanimity ; but 
Mr. Samuel Wilkins and his friend 
began to throw looks of defiance upon 
the waistcoat and whiskers. And the 
waistcoat and whiskers, by way of 
intimating the slight degree in which 
they were affected by the looks afore- 
said, bestowed glances of increased 
admiration upon Miss J'mima Ivins 
and friend. The concert and vaude- 
ville concluded, they promenaded the 
gardens. The waistcoat and whiskers 
did the same; and made divers re- 
marks complimentary to the ankles of 
Miss J'mima Ivins and friend, in an 
audible tone. At length, not satisfied 
with these numerous atrocities, they 
actually came up and asked Miss 



J'mima Ivins, and Miss J'mima Ivins's 
friend to dance, without taking no 
more notice of Mr. Samuel Wilkins, 
and Miss J'mima Ivins's friend's young 
man, than if they was nobody ! 

" What do you mean by that, 
scoundrel ? " exclaimed Mr. Samuel 
Wilkins, grasping the gilt-knobbed 
dress-cane firmly in his right hand. 
" What 's the matter with you, you 
little humbug ? " replied the whiskers. 
" How dare you insult me and my 
friend \ " inquired the friend's young 
man. "Youandyourfriendbehanged! 1 ' 
responded the waistcoat. " Take that," 
exclaimed Mr. Samuel Wilkins. The 
ferrule of the gilt-knobbed dress-cane 
was visible for an instant, and then 
the light of the variegated lamps shone 
brightly upon it as it whirled into the 
air, cane and all. "Give it him," said 
the waistcoat. "Horficer !" screamed 
the ladies. Miss J'mima Ivins's beau, 
and the friend's young man, lay gasp- 
ing on the gravel, and the waistcoat 
and whiskers were seen no more. 

Miss J'mima Ivins and friend being- 
conscious that the affray was in no 
slight degree attributable to them- 
selves, of course went into hysterics 
forthwith ; declared themselves the 
most injured of women ; exclaimed, in 
incoherent ravings, that they had been 
suspected — wrongfully suspected — oh I 
that they should ever have lived to see 
the day — and so forth ; suffered a re- 
lapse every time they opened their 
eyes and saw their unfortunate little 
admirers ; and were carried to their 
respective abodes in a hackney-coach, 
and a state of insensibility, compounded 
of shrub, sherry, and excitement. 



THE PARLOUR ORATOR. 



143 



CHAPTER V. 



THE PARLOUR ORATOR. 



We had been lounging one evening, 
down Oxford-street, Holborn, Cheap- 
side, Coleman-street, Finsbury-square, 
and so on, with the intention of return- 
ing westward, by Pentonville and the 
New-road, when we began to feel rather 
thirsty, and disposed to rest for five or 
ten minutes. So, we turned back towards 
an old, quiet, decent public-house, which 
we remembered to have passed but a 
moment before (it was not far from the 
City-road), for the purpose of solacing 
ourself with a glass of ale. The house 
was none of your stuccoed, French- 
polished, illuminated palaces, but a 
modest public-house of the old school, 
with a little old bar, and a little old 
landlord, who, with a wife and daughter 
of the same pattern, was comfortably 
seated in the bar aforesaid — a snug 
little room with a cheerful fire, pro- 
tected by a large screen : from behind 
which the young lady emerged on our 
representing our inclination for a glass 
of ale. 

" Won't you walk into the parlour, 
sir ? " said the young lady, in seductive 
tones. 

a You had better walk into the par- 
lour, sir," said the little old landlord, 
throwing his chair back, and looking 
round one side of the screen, to survey 
our appearance. 

" You had much better step into the 
parlour, sir," said the little old lady, 
popping out her head, on the other side 
of the screen. 

We cast a slight glance around, as if 
to express our ignorance of the locality 
so much recommended. The little old 
landlord observed it; bustled out of 
the small door of the small bar ; and 
forthwith ushered us into the parlour 
itself. 

It was an ancient, dark-looking room, 
with oaken wainscoting, a sanded floor, 
and a high mantelpiece. The walls 
were ornamented with three or four 



old coloured prints in black frames, 
each print representing a naval engage- 
ment, with a couple of men-of-war 
banging away at each other most vigor- 
ously, while another vessel or two were 
blowing up in the distance, and the 
foreground presented a miscellaneous 
collection of broken masts and blue 
legs sticking up out of the water. De- 
pending from the ceiling in the centre 
of the room, were* a gas-light and 
bell-pull; on each side were three or 
four long narrow tables, behind which 
was a thickly-planted row of those 
slippery, shiny-looking wooden chairs, 
peculiar to hostelries of this description. 
The monotonous appearance of the 
sanded boards was relieved by an occa- 
sional spittoon ; and a triangular pile 
of those useful articles adorned the two 
upper corners of the apartment. 

At the furthest table, nearest the 
fire, with his face towards the door at 
the bottom of the room, sat a stoutish 
man of about forty, whose short, stiff, 
black hair curled closely round a broad 
high forehead, and a face to which 
something besides water and exercise 
had communicated a rather inflamed 
appearance. He was smoking a cigar, 
with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and 
had that confident oracular air which 
marked him as the leading politician, 
general authority, and universal anec- 
dote-relater, of the place. He had evi- 
dently just delivered himself of some- 
thing very weighty; for the remainder 
of the company were puffing at their 
respective pipes and cigars in a kind 
of solemn abstraction, as if quite over- 
whelmed with the magnitude of the 
subject recently under discussion. 

On his right hand sat an elderly 
gentleman with a white head, and 
broad-brimmed brown hat ; on his 
left, a sharp-nosed light-haired man in 
a brown surtout reaching nearly to his 
heels, who took a whiff at his pipe, and 



144 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



an admiring glance at the red-faced 
man, alternately. 

" Very extraordinary ! " said the 
light -haired man after a pause of five 
minutes. A murmur of assent ran 
through the company. 

" Not at all extraordinary — not at 
all," said the red-faced man, awakening 
suddenly from his reverie, and turning 
upon the light-haired man, the moment 
he had spoken. 

" Why should it be extraordinary ? 
— why is it extraordinary ? — prove it 
to be extraordinary !" 

" Oh, if you come to that — " said the 
light-haired man, meekly. 

" Come to that ! " ejaculated the man 
with the red face ; " but we must come 
to that. We stand, in these times, upon 
a calm elevation of intellectual attain- 
ment, and not in the dark recess of 
mental deprivation. Proof, is what I 
require — proof, and not assertions, in 
these stirring times. Every gen'lem'n 
that knows me, knows what was the 
nature and effect of my observations, 
when it was in the contemplation of 
the Old-street Suburban Representa- 
tive Discovery Society, to recommend 
a candidate for that place in Cornwall 
there — I forget the name of it. ( Mr. 
Snobee,' said Mr. Wilson, ' is a fit and 
proper person to represent the borough 
in Parliament.' ' Prove it,' says I. 
( He is a friend to Reform,' says Mr. 
Wilson. ' Prove it,' says I. ' The 
abolitionist of the national debt, the 
unflinching opponent of pensions, the 
uncompromising advocate of the negro, 
the reducer of sinecures and the dura- 
tion of Parliaments ; the extender of 
nothing but the suffrages of the 
people,' says Mr. Wilson. ' Prove it,' 
says I. c His acts prove it,' says he. 
e Prove them,'' says I. 

"And he could not prove them," 
said the red-faced man, looking round 
triumphantly ; "and the borough 
didn't have him ; and if you carried 
this principle to the full extent, you 'd 
have no debt, no pensions, no sinecures, 
no negroes, no nothing. And then, 
standing upon an elevation of intel- 
lectual attainment, and having reached 
the summit of popular prosperity, you 



j might bid defiance to the nations of 
the earth, and erect yourselves in 
the proud confidence of wisdom and 
supei'iority. This is my argument — 
this always has been my argument — 
and if I was a Member of the House 
of Commons to-morrow, I 'd make 'em 
shake in their shoes with it." And the 
red-faced man, having struck the table 
very hard with his clenched fist, to 
add weight to the declaration, smoked 
away like a brewery. 

" Well ! " said the sharp-nosed man, 
in a very slow and soft voice, address- 
ing the company in general, " I always 
do say, that of all the gentlemen I have 
the pleasure of meeting in this room, 
there is not one whose conversation I 
like to hear so much as Mr. Rogers's 
or who is such improving company." 

" Improving company ! " said Mr. 
Rogers, for that, it seemed, was the name 
of the red-faced man, " You may say I am 
improving company, for I 've improved 
you all to some purpose ; though as to 
my conversation being as my friend 
Mr. Ellis here describes it, that is not 
for me to say anything about. You, 
gentlemen, are the best judges on that 
point ; but this I will say, when I came 
into this parish, and first used this 
room, ten years ago, I don't believe 
there was one man in it, who knew he 
was a slave — and now you all kuow it, 
and writhe under it. Inscribe that 
upon my tomb, and I am satisfied." 

" Why, as to inscribing it on your 
tomb," said a little greengrocer with 
a chubby face, "of course you can 
have anything chalked up, as you 
likes to pay for, so far as it relates to 
yourself and your affairs ; but, when 
you come to talk about slaves, and 
that there abuse, you 'd better keep it 
in the family, 'cos I for one don't like 
to be called them names, night after 
night." 

" You are a slave," said the red- 
faced man, " and the most pitiable of 
all slaves." 

" Werry hard if I am," interrupted 
the greengrocer, "for I got no good 
out of the twenty million that was. 
paid for 'mancipation, any how." 

A willing slave," ejaculated the 



THE PARLOUR OUATOR. 



J 45 



red-faced man, getting more red with 
eloquence, and contradiction — " re- 
signing tlie dearest birthright of your 
children — neglecting the sacred call of 
Liberty— who, standing imploringly 
before you, appeals to the warmest 
feelings of your heart, and points to 
your helpless infants but in vain." 

" Prove it," said the greengrocer. 

" Prove it ! " sneered the man with 
the red-face. " What ! bending be- 
neath the yoke of an insolent and 
factious oligarchy ; bowed down by 
the domination of cruel laws ; groan- 
ing beneath tyranny and oppression 
on every hand, at every side, and in 
every corner. Prove it ? — " The 
red-faced man abruptly broke off, 
sneered melo-dramatically, and buried 
his countenance and his indignation 
together, in a quart pot. 

" Ah, to be sure, Mr. Rogers," said 
a stout broker in a large waistcoat, 
who had kept his eyes fixed on this 
luminary all the time he was speaking. 
" Ah, to be sure," said the broker 
with a sigh, " that 's the point. 11 

" Of course, of course," said divers 
members of the company, who under- 
stood almost as much about the matter 
as the broker himself. 

" You had better let him alone, 
Tommy," said the broker, by way of 
advice to the little greengrocer, " he 
can tell what's o'clock by an eight-day, 
without looking at the minute hand, 
he can. Try it on, on some other 
suit ; it won't do with him, Tommy." 

" What is a man ? " continued the 
red-faced specimen of the species, 
jerking his hat indignantly from its 
peg on the wall. " What is an Eng- 
lishman % Is he to be trampled upon 
by every oppressor % Is he to be 
knocked down at everybody's bidding ? 
What 's freedom ? Not a standing 
army. What 's a standing army ? 
Not freedom. What 's general happi- 
ness \ Not universal misery. Liberty 
ain't the window-tax, is it ? The 
Lords ain't the Commons, are they % " 
And the red-faced man, gradually 



bursting into a radiating sentence, in 
which such adjectives as "dastardly," 
" oppressive," " violent," and " san- 
guinary," formed the most conspicuous 
words, knocked his hat indignantly 
over his eyes, left the room, and 
slammed the door after him. 

" Wonderful man ! " said he of the 
sharp nose. 

" Splendid speaker ! " added the 
broker. 

" Great power ! " said every body „ 
but the greengrocer. And as they 
said it, the whole party shook their 
heads mysteriously, and one by one 
retired, leaving us alone in the old 
parlour. 

If we had followed the established 
precedent in all such instances, we 
should have fallen into a fit of musing, 
without delay. The ancient appear- 
ance of the room — the old panelling of 
the wall — the chimney blackened with 
smoke and age — would have carried 
us back a hundred years at least, and 
we should have gone dreaming on, 
until the pewter-pot on the table, or 
the little beer-chiller on the fire, had 
started into life, and addressed to us a 
long story of days gone by. But, by 
some means or other, we were not in 
a romantic humour ; and although we 
tried very hard to invest the furniture 
with vitality, it remained perfectly 
unmoved, obstinate, and sullen. Being 
thus reduced to the unpleasant neces- 
sity of musing about ordinary matters, 
our thoughts reverted to the red-faced 
man, and his oratorical display. 

A numerous race are these red- 
faced men ; there is not a parlour, 
or club-room, or benefit society, or 
humble party of any kind, without 
its red-faced man. Weak-pated dolts 
they are, and a great deal of mischief 
they do to their cause, however good. 
. So, just to hold a pattern one up, to 
know the others by, we took his like- 
ness at once, and put him in here. 
And that is the reason why we have 
written this paper. 



No. 182. 



146 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE HOSPITAL PATIENT. 



In our rambles through the streets of 
London after evening has set in, we 
often pause beneath the windows of 
some public hospital, and picture to 
ourself the gloomy and mournful scenes 
that are passing within. The sudden 
moving of a taper as its feeble ray 
shoots from window to window, until 
its light gradually disappears, as 
if it were carried farther back into the 
room to the bedside of some suffering 
patient, is enough to awaken a whole 
crowd of reflections ; the mere glim- 
mering of the low-burning lamps, 
which, when all other habitations are 
wrapped in darkness and slumber, 
denote the chamber where so many 
forms are writhing with pain, or wast- 
ing with disease, is sufficient to check 
the most boisterous merriment. 

Who can tell the anguish of those 
weary hours, when the only sound the 
sick man hears, is the disjointed wan- 
derings of some feverish slumberer 
near him, the low moan of pain, or 
perhaps the muttered, long-forgotten 
prayer of a dying man % Who, but 
they who have felt it, can imagine 
the sense of loneliness and desolation 
which must be the portion of those 
who in the hour of dangerous illness 
are left to be tended by strangers ; 
for what hands, be they ever so gentle, 
can wipe the clammy brow, or smooth 
the restless bed, like those of mother, 
wife, or child ? 

Impressed with these thoughts, we 
bave turned away, through the nearly- 
deserted streets ; and the sight of the 
few miserable creatures still hovering 
about them, has not tended to lessen 



the pain 



which such meditations 



awaken. The hospital is a refuge 
and resting-place for hundreds, who 
but for such institutions must die in 
the streets and doorways ; but what 
can be the feelings of some outcasts 
when they are stretched on the bed 



of sickness with scarcely a hope of 
recovery % The wretched woman who 
lingers about the pavement, hours 
after midnight, and the miserable 
shadow of a man — the ghastly rem- 
nant that want and drunkenness have 
left — which crouches beneath a win- 
dow-ledge, to sleep where there is 
some shelter from the rain, have little 
to bind them to life, but what have 
they to look back upon, in death ? 
What are the unwonted comforts of a 
roof and a bed, to them, when the 
recollections of a whole life of debase- 
ment stalk before them ; when repent- 
ance seems a mockery, and sorrow 
comes too late % 

About a twelvemonth ago, as we 
were strolling through Co vent garden, 
(we had been thinking about these 
things overnight) we were attracted 
by the very prepossessing appearance 
of a pickpocket, who having declined 
to take the trouble of walking to the 
Police-office, on the ground that he 
hadn't the slightest wish to go there 
at all, was being conveyed thither in 
a wheelbarrow, to the huge delight of 
a crowd. 

Somehow, we never can resist join- 
ing a crowd, so we turned back with 
the mob, and entered the office, in 
company with our friend the pick- 
pocket, a couple of policemen, and as 
many dirty-faced spectators as could 
squeeze their way in. 

There was a powerful, ill-looking 
young fellow at the bar, who was 
undergoing an examination, on the 
very common charge of having, on 
the previous night, ill-treated a woman, 
with whom he lived in some court hard 
by. Several witnesses bore testimony 
to acts of the grossest brutality ; and 
a certificate was read from the house- 
surgeon of a neighbouring hospital, 
describing the nature of the injuries 
the woman had received,, and inti- 



THE HOSPITAL PATIENT. 



147 



mating that her recovery was ex- 
tremely doubtful. 

Some question appeared to have 
been raised about the identity of the 
prisoner ; for when it was agreed that 
the two magistrates should visit the 
hospital at eight o'clock that evening, 
to take her deposition, it was settled 
that the man should be taken there 
also. He turned pale at this, and 
we saw him clench the bar very 
hard when the order was given. He 
was removed directly afterwards, and 
he spoke not a word. 

We felt an irrepressible curiosity to 
witness this. interview, although it is 
hard to tell why, at this instant, for we 
knew it must be a painful one. It 
was no very difficult matter for us 
to gain permission, and we obtained 
it. 

The prisoner, and the officer who 
had him in custody, were already at 
the hospital when we reached it, and 
waiting the arrival of the magistrates 
in a small room below stairs. The 
man was handcuffed, and his hat was 
pulled forward over his eyes. It was 
easy to see, though, by the white- 
ness of his countenance, and the con- 
stant twitching of the muscles of his 
face, that he dreaded what was to 
come. After a short interval, the 
magistrates and clerk were bowed in 
by the house-surgeon and a couple of 
young men who smelt very strong of 
tobacco-smoke — they were introduced 
as " dressers" — and after one magis- 
trate had complained bitterly of the 
cold, and the other of the absence of 
any news in the evening paper, it was 
announced that the patient was pre- 
pared; and we were conducted to the 
"casualty ward" in which she was 
lying. 

The dim light which burnt in the 
spacious room, increased rather than 
diminished the ghastly appearance of 
the hapless creatures in the beds, 
which were ranged in two long rows 
on either side. In one bed, lay a child 
enveloped in bandages, with its body 
half consumed by fire ; in another, a 
female, rendered hideous by some 
dreadful accident, was wildly beating 



her clenched fists on the cover- 
let, in pain ; on a third, there lay 
stretched a young girl, apparently in 
the heavy stupor often the immediate 
precursor of death : her face was 
stained with blood, and her breast 
and arms were bound up in folds of 
linen. Two or three of the beds were 
empty, and their recent occupants 
were sitting beside them, but with 
faces so wan, and eyes so bright and 
glassy, that it was fearful to meet , 
their gaze. On every face was 
stamped the expression of anguish and 
suffering. 

The object of the visit, was lying at 
the upper end of the room. She was 
a fine young woman of about two or 
three and twenty. Her long black 
hair which had been hastily cut from 
near the wounds on her head, streamed 
over the pillow in jagged and matted 
locks. Her face bore deep marks of 
the ill-usage she had received : her 
hand was pressed upon her side, as if 
her chief pain were there ; her breath- 
ing was short and heavy ; and it was 
plain to see that she was dying fast. 
She murmured a few words in reply to 
the magistrate's inquiry whether she 
was in great pain ; and, having been 
raised on the pillow by the nurse, 
looked vacantly upon the strange 
countenances that surrounded her 
bed. The magistrate nodded to the 
officer, to bring the man forward. He 
did so, and stationed him at the bed- 
side. The girl looked on, with a wild 
and troubled expression of face ; but 
her sight was dim. and she did not 
know him. 

" Take off his hat," said the magis- 
trate. The officer did as he was 
desired, and the man's features were 
disclosed. 

The girl started up, with an energy 
quite preternatural ; the fire gleamed 
in her heavy eyes, and the blood 
rushed to her pale and sunken cheeks. 
It was a convulsive effort. She fell 
back upon her pillow, and covering 
her scarred and bruised face with her 
hands, burst into tears. The man 
cast an anxious look towards her, but 
otherwise appeared wholly unmoved. 
l2 



us 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



After a brief pause the nature of their I 
errand was explained, and the oath 
tendered. 

" Oh, no, gentlemen," said the girl, | 
raising herself once more, and folding 
her hands together ; " no, gentlemen, 
for God's sake ! I did it myself — it 
was nobody's fault — it was an accident. ] 
He didn't hurt me ; he wouldn't for all j 
the world. Jack, dear Jack, you know j 
you wouldn't ! " 

Her sight was fast failing her, and ■ 
her hand groped over the bedclothes 
in search of his. Brute as the man j 
was, he was not prepared for this. He ! 
turned his face from the bed, and 
sobbed. The girl's colour changed, I 
and her breathing grew more dim- 1 
cult. She was evidently dying. 

" We respect the feelings which \ 
prompt you to this," said the gentleman 
who had spoken first, " but let me j 



warn you, not to persist in what you 
know to be untrue, until it is too late. 
It cannot save him." 

" Jack," murmured the girl, laying 
her hand upon his arm, " they shall 
not persuade me to swear your fife 
away. He didn't do it, gentlemen. He 
never hurt me." She grasped his 
arm tightly, and added, in a broken 
whisper, " I hope God Almighty will 
forgive me all the wrong I have done, 
and the life I have led. God bless 
you, Jack. Some kind gentleman take 
my love to my poor old father. Five 
years ago, he said he wished I had died 
a child. Oh, I wish I had ! I wish I 
had ! " 

The nurse bent over the girl for 
a few seconds, and then drew the 
sheet over her face. It covered a 
corpse. 



MISPLACED ATTACHMENT OF MR. JOHN DOUNCE. 



149 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE MISPLACED ATTACHMENT OF MR. JOHN DOUNCE. 



If we had to make a classification of 
society, there are a particular kind of 
men whom we should immediately set 
down under the head of " Old Boys ;" 
and a column of most extensive dimen- 
sions the old boys would require. To 
what precise causes the rapid advance 
of old boy population is to be traced, we 
are unable to determine. It would be 
an interesting and curious speculation, 
but, as we have not sufficient space to 
devote to it here, we simply state the 
fact that the numbers of the old boys 
have been gradually augmenting within 
the last few years, and that they are 
at this moment alarmingly on the 
increase. 

Upon a general review of the sub- 
ject, and without considering it 
minutely in detail, we should be dis- 
posed to subdivide the old boys into 
two distinct classes — the gay old boys, 
and the steady old boys. The gay old 
boys, are paunchy old men in the dis- 
guise of young ones, who frequent the 
Quadrant and Regent-street in the 
day-time : the theatres (especially 
theatres under lady management) at 
night ; and who assume all the foppish- 
ness and levity of boys, without the 
excuse of youth or inexperience. The 
steady old boys are certain stout old 
gentlemen of clean appearance, who are 
always to be seen in the same taverns, 
at the same hours every evening, 
smoking and drinking in the same 
company. 

There was once a fine collection of 
old boys to be seen round the circular 
table at Offley's every night, between 
the hours of half -past eight and half- 
past eleven. We have lost sight of 
them for some time. There were, and 
may be still, for aught we know, two 
splendid specimens in full blossom at 
the Rainbow Tavern in Fleet-street, 
who always used to sit in the box 
nearest the fire-place, and smoked 



long cherry-stick pipes which went 
under the table, with the bowls rest- 
ing on the floor. Grand old boys 
they were — fat, red-faced, white- 
headed, old fellows — always there — 
one on one side the table, and the* 
other opposite — puffing and drinking 
away in great state. Every bodj 
knew them, and it was supposed by 
some people that they were both 
immortal. 

Mr. John Dounce was an old boy 
of the latter class (we don't mean im- 
mortal, but steady), a retired glove 
and braces maker, a widower, resident 
with three daughters — all grown up, 
and all unmarried — in Cursitor-street, 
Chancery-lane. He was a short, 
round, large-faced, tubbish sort of 
man, with a broad-brimmed hat, and 
a square coat ; and had that grave, 
but confident, kind of roll, peculiar to 
old boys in general. Regular as clock- 
work — breakfast at nine — dress and 
tittivate a little — down to the Sir 
Somebody's Head — glass of ale and 
the paper — come back again, and take 
daughters out for a walk — dinner 
at three — glass of grog and pipe — 
nap — tea — little walk — Sir Somebody's 
Head again — capital house — delight- 
ful evenings. There were Mr. Harris 
the law-stationer, and Mr. Jennings, 
the robe-maker (two jolly young fel- 
lows like himself), and Jones, the 
barrister's clerk — rum fellow that 
Jones — capital company — full of anec- 
dote ! — and there they sat every night 
till just ten minutes before twelve, 
drinking their brandy-and-water, and 
smoking their pipes, and telling stories, 
and enjoying themselves with a kind 
of solemn joviality particularly 
edifying. 

Sometimes Jones would propose a 
half-price visit to Drury Lane or 
Covent Garden, to see two acts of a 
five-act play, and a new farce, perhaps, 



150 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



or a ballet, on which occasions the 
whole four of them went together ; 
none of your hurrying and nonsense, 
but having their brandy-and-water 
first, comfortably, and ordering a steak 
and some oysters for their supper 
against they came back, and then 
walking coolly into the pit, when the 
"rush" had gone in, as all sensible 
people do, and did when Mr. Bounce 
was a young man, except when the 
celebrated Master Betty was at the 
height of his popularity, and then, sir, 
— then — Mr. Bounce perfectly well 
remembered getting a holiday from 
business ; and going to the pit doors at 
eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and 
waiting there, till six in the afternoon, 
with some sandwiches in a pocket- 
handkerchief and some wine in a phial; 
and fainting after all, with the heat 
and fatigue before the play began ; in 
which situation he was lifted out of 
the pit, into one of the dress boxes, sir, 
by five of the finest women of that 
day, sir, who compassionated his 
situation and administered restoratives, 
and sent a black servant, six foot 
high, in blue and silver livery, next 
morning with their compliments, and 
to know how he found himself, sir — by 
G — ! Between the acts Mr. Bounce 
and Mr. Harris, and Mr. Jennings, 
used to stand up, and look round the 
house, and Jones — knowing fellow 
that Jones — knew every body — pointed 
out the fashionable and celebrated 
lady So-and-So in the boxes, at the 
mention of whose name Mr. Bounce, 
after brushing up his hair, and ad- 
justing his neckkerchief, would 
inspect the aforesaid lady So-and-So 
through an immense glass, and remark, 
either, that she was a " fine woman — 
very fine woman, indeed," or that 
" there might be a little more of her, 
■ — eh, Jones \ " just as the case might 
happen to be. When the dancing 
began, John Bounce and the other 
old boys were particularly anxious to 
see what was going forward on the 
stage, and Jones — wicked dog that 
Jones — whispered little critical re- 
marks into the ears of John Bounce, 
which John Bounce retailed to Mr. 



Harris and Mr. Harris to Mr. Jen- 
nings ; and then they all four laughed, 
until the tears ran down, out of their 
eyes. 

When the curtain fell, they walked 
back together, two and two, to the 
steaks and oysters ; and when they 
came to the second glass of brandy- 
and-water, Jones — hoaxing scamp, that 
Jones — used to recount how he had 
observed a lady in white feathers, in 
one of the pit boxes, gazing intently 
on Mr. Bounce all the evening, and 
how he had caught Mr. Bounce, when- 
ever he thought no one was looking at 
him, bestowing ardent looks of intense 
devotion on the lady in return ; on 
which Mr. Harris and Mr. Jennings 
used to laugh very heartily, and John. 
Bounce more heartily than either of 
them, acknowledging, however, that 
the time had been when he might have 
done such things ; upon which Mr. 
Jones used to poke him in the ribs, 
and tell him he had been a sad dog in 
his time, which John Bounce, with 
chuckles confessed. And after Mr. 
Harris and Mr. Jennings had preferred 
their claims to the character of having 
been sad dogs too, they separated har- 
moniously, and trotted home. 

The decrees of Fate, and the means 
by which they are brought about, are 
mysterious and inscrutable. John 
Bounce had led this life for twenty 
years and upwards, without wish for 
change, or care for variety, when his 
whole social system was suddenly 
upset, and turned completely topsy- 
turvy — not by an earthquake, or some 
other dreadful convulsion of nature, 
as the reader would be inclined to sup- 
pose, but by the simple agency of an 
oyster ; and thus it happened. 

Mr. John Bounce was returning 
one night from the Sir Somebody's 
Head, to his residence in Cursitor- 
street — not tipsy, but rather excited, 
for it was Mr. Jennings's birthday, 
and they had had a brace of partridges 
for supper, and a brace of extra glasses 
afterwards, and Jones had been more 
than ordinarily amusing — when his 
eyes rested on a newly-opened oyster- 
shop, on a magnificent scale, with 



MISPLACED ATTACHMENT OF MR. JOHN BOUNCE. 



151 



natives laid, one deep, in circular 
marble basins in the windows, together 
with little round barrels of oysters 
directed to Lords and Baronets, and 
Colonels and Captains, in every part 
of the habitable globe. 

Behind the natives were the barrels, 
and behind ' the barrels was a young- 
lady of about five-and-twenty, all in 
blue, and all alone — splendid creature, 
charming face, and lovely figure ! It 
is difficult to say whether Mr. John 
Bounce's red countenance, illuminated 
as it was by the flickering gas-light in 
the window before which he paused, 
excited the lady's risibility, or whether 
a natural exuberance of animal spirits 
proved too much for that staidness of 
demeanour which the forms of society 
rather dictatorially prescribe. But 
certain it is, that the lady smiled ; then 
put her finger upon her lip, with a 
striking recollection of what was due 
to herself ; and finally retired, in 
oyster-like bashfulness, to the very 
back of the counter. The sad-dog sort 
of feeling came strongly upon John 
Bounce : he lingered — the lady in 
blue made no sign. He coughed — still 
she came not. He entered the shop. 

" Can you open me an oyster, my 
dear % " said Mr. John Bounce. 

" Bare say I can, sir," replied the 
lady in blue, with playfulness. 
And Mr. John Bounce eat one oys- 
ter, and then looked at the young 
lady, and then eat another, and then 
squeezed the young lady's hand as she 
was opening the third, and so forth, 
until he had devoured a dozen of those 
at eightpence in less than no time. 

" Can you open me half-a-dozen 
more, my dear % " inquired Mr. John 
Bounce. 

"I'll see what I can do for you, 
sir," replied the young lady in blue, 
even more bewitchingly than before ; 
and Mr. John Bounce ate half-a-dozen 
more of those at eightpence. 

" You couldn't manage to get me a 
glass of brandy-and-water, my dear, I 
suppose ? " said Mr. John Bounce, 
when he had finished the oysters : in a 
tone which clearly implied his sup- 
position that she could. . 



" I '11 see, sir," said the young lady : 
and away she ran out of the shop, and 
down the street, her long auburn 
ringlets shaking in the wind in the 
most enchanting manner ; and back 
she came again, tripping over the coal- 
cellar lids like a whipping-top, with a 
tumbler of brandy-and-water, which 
Mr. John Bounce insisted on her 
taking a share of, as it was regular 
ladies 1 grog — hot, strong, sweet, and 
plenty of it. 

Soothe young lady sat down with 
Mr. John Bounce, in a little red box 
with a green curtain, and took a small 
sip of the brandy-and-water, and a 
small look at Mr. John Bounce, and 
then turned her head away, and went 
through various other serio-panto- 
mimic fascinations, which forcibly 
reminded Mr. John Bounce of the 
first time he courted his first wife, 
and which made him feel more affec- 
tionate than ever ; in pursuance of 
which affection, and actuated by which 
feeling, Mr. John Bounce sounded the 
young lady on her matrimonial engage- 
ments, when the young lady denied 
having formed any such engagements 
at all — she couldn't abear the men, 
they were such deceivers ; thereupon 
Mr. John Bounce inquired whether 
this sweeping condemnation was meant 
to include other than very young men ; 
on which the young lady blushed 
deeply — at least she turned away her 
head, and said Mr. John Bounce had 
made her blush, so of course she did 
blush — and Mr. John Bounce was a 
long time drinking the brandy-and- 
water ; and, at last, John Bounce 
went home to bed, and dreamed of his 
first wife, and his second wife, and 
the young lady, and partridges, and 
oysters, and brandy-and-water, and 
disinterested attachments. 

The next morning, John Bounce 
was rather feverish with the extra 
brandy-and-water of the previous 
night ; and, partly in the hope of cool- 
ing himself with an oyster, and partly 
with the view of ascertaining whether 
he owed the young lady any thing, or 
not, went back to the oyster-shop. If 
the young lady had appeared beautiful 



152 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



by night, she was perfectly irresistible 
by day ; and, from this time forward, 
a change came over the spirit of John 
Dounce's dream. He bought shirt- 
pins ; wore a ring on his third 
finger ; read poetry ; bribed a cheap 
miniature-painter to perpetrate a faint 
resemblance to a youthful face, with a 
curtain over his head, six large books 
in the background, and an open 
country in the distance (this he called 
his portrait) ; "went on" altogether 
in such an uproarious manner, that 
the three Miss Dounces went off on 
small pensions, he having made the 
tenement in Cursitor-street too warm 
to contain them ; and in short, com- 
ported and demeaned himself in every j 
respect like an unmitigated old ! 
Saracen, as he was. 

As to his ancient friends, the other 
old boys, at the Sir Somebody's Head, 
he dropped off from them by gradual 
degrees ; for, even when he did go 
there, Jones — vulgar fellow that Jones 
■ — persisted in asking " when it was to 
be ?" and "whether he was to have any | 
gloves ?" together with other inquiries ! 



of an equally offensive nature : at 
which not only Harris laughed, but 
Jennings also ; so, he cut the two, alto- 
gether, and attached himself solely to 
the blue young lady at the smart 
oyster- shop. 

Now comes the moral of the story — 
for it has a moral after all. The last 
mentioned young lady, having derived 
sufficient profit and emolument from 
John Dounce's attachment, not only 
refused, when matters came to a crisis, 
to take him for better for worse, but 
expressly declared, to use her own 
forcible words, that she " wouldn't 
have him at no price ; " and John 
Dounce, having lost his old friends, 
alienated his relations, and rendered 
himself ridiculous to everybody, made 
offers successively to a schoolmistress, 
a landlady, a feminine tobacconist, and a 
housekeeper ; and, being directly re- 
jected by each and every of them, was 
accepted by his cook, with whom he 
now lives, a henpecked husband, a 
melancholy monument of antiquated 
misery, and a living warning to all 
uxorious old boys. 



THE MISTAKEN MILLINER. 



153 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE MISTAKEN MILLINER. A TALE OF AMBITION. 



Miss Amelia Martin was pale, tallish, 
thin, and two-and-thirty — what ill- 
natured people would call plain, and 
police reports interesting. She was a 
milliner and dressmaker, living on 
her business and not above it. If you 
had been a young lady in service, and 
had wanted Miss Martin,as a greatmany 
young ladies in service did, you would 
just have stepped up, in the evening, 
to number forty-seven, Drummond- 
street, George-street, Euston-square, 
and after casting your eye on a brass 
door-plate, one foot ten by one and a 
half, ornamented with a great brass 
knob at each of the four corners, and 
bearing the inscription "Miss Martin; 
millinery and dressmaking, in all its 
branches ; " you 'd just have knocked 
two loud knocks at the street-door ; 
and down would have come Miss 
Martin herself, in a merino gown of 
the newest fashion, black velvet brace- 
lets on the genteelest principle, and 
other little elegances of the most 
approved description. 

If Miss Martin knew the young 
lady who called, or if the youDg lady 
who called had been recommended by 
any other young lady whom Miss Mar- 
tin knew, Miss Martin would forthwith 
show her upstairs into the two pair 
front, and chat she would — so kind, 
and so comfortable — it really wasn't 
like a matter of business, she was so 
friendly ; and, then Miss Martin, after 
contemplating the figure and general 
appearance of the young lady in ser- 
vice with great apparent admiration, 
would say how well she would look, 
to-be-sure, in a low dress with short 
sleeves : made very full in the skirts, 
with four tucks in the bottom ; to which 
the young lady in service would reply 
in terms expressive of her entire con- 
currence in the notion, and of the vir- 
tuous indignation with which she 
reflected on the tyranny of « Missis," 



who would'nt allow a young girl to wear 
a short sleeve of an arternoon — no, nor 
nothing smart, not even a pair of ear- 
rings ; let alone hiding people's heads 
of hair under them frightful caps. At 
the termination of this complaint, 
Miss Amelia Martin would distantly 
suggest certain dark suspicions that 
some people were jealous on account 
of their own daughters, and were 
obliged to keep their servants' charms 
under, for fear they should get married 
first, which was no uncommon circum- 
stance—leastways she had known two 
or three young ladies in service, who 
had married a great deal better than 
their mississes, and they were not very 
good-looking either ; and then the 
young lady would inform Miss Martin, 
in confidence, that how one of their 
young ladies was engaged to a young 
man and was a-going to be married, and 
Missis was so proud about it there was 
no bearing of her ; but how she needn't 
hold her head quite so high neither, 
for, after all, he was only a clerk. 
And, after expressing due contempt 
for clerks in general, and the engaged 
clerk in particular, and the highest 
opinion possible of themselves and 
each other, Miss Martin and the young 
lady in service would bid each other 
good night, in a friendly but perfectly 
genteel manner : and the one went 
back to her " place," and the other, to 
her room on the second- floor front. 

There is no saying how long Miss 
Amelia Martin might have continued 
this course of life ; how extensive a 
connection she might have established 
among young ladies in service ; or 
what amount her demands upon their 
quarterly receipts might have ulti- 
mately attained, had not an unforeseen 
train of circumstances directed her 
thoughts to a sphere of action 
very different from dressmaking or 
millinery. 



154 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



A friend of Miss Martin's who had 
long been keeping company with an 
ornamental painter ana decorator's 
journeyman, at last consented (on 
being at last asked to do so) to name 
the day which would make the afore- 
said journeyman a happy husband. 
It was a Monday that was appointed 
for the celebration of the nuptials, and 
Miss Amelia Martin was invited, among 
others, to honour the wedding- dinner 
with her presence. It was a charming 
party; Somers' town the locality, and a 
front parlour the apartment. The 
ornamental painter and decorator's 
journeyman, had taken a house — no 
lodgings nor vulgarity of that kind, 
but a house — four beautiful rooms, and 
a delightful little wasbhouse at the end 
of the passage — which was the most 
convenient thing in the world, for the 
bridesmaids could sit in the front par- 
loim and receive the company, and 
then run into the little wasbhouse and 
see how the pudding and boiled pork 
were getting on in the copper, and 
then pop back into the parlour again, 
as snug and comfortable as possible. 
And such a parlour as it was ! Beau- 
tiful Kidderminster carpet — six bran- 
new cane-bottomed stained chairs 
— three wine-glasses and a tumbler on 
each sideboard — farmer's girl and 
farmer's boy on the mantelpiece : 
girl tumbling over a stile, and boy 
spitting himself, on the handle of a 
pitchfork — long white dimity cur- 
tains in the window — and, in short, 
every thing on the most genteel scale 
imaginable. 

Then, the dinner. There was baked 
leg of mutton at the top, boiled leg 
of mutton at the bottom, pair of 
fowls and leg of pork in the middle ; 
porter-pots at the corners ; pepper, 
mustard, and vinegar in the centre ; 
vegetables on the floor; and plum- 
pudding and apple-pie and tartlets 
without number : to say nothing of 
cheese, and celery, and water-cresses, 
and all that sort of thing. As to the 
company ! Miss, Amelia Martin her- 
self declared, on a subsequent occasion, 
that, much as she had heard of the 
ornamental painter's journeyman's 



connexion, she never could have sup- 
posed it was half so genteel. There 
was his father, such a funny old gentle- 
man — and his mother, such a dear old 
lady — and his sister, such a charming 
girl — and his brother, such a manly- 
looking young man — with such a eye ! 
But even all these were as nothing 
when compared with his musical 
friends, Mr. and Mrs. Jennings Rodolph, 
from White Conduit, with whom the 
ornamental painter's journeyman had 
been fortunate enough to contract an 
intimacy while engaged in decorating 
the concert-room of that noble institu- 
tion. To hear them sing separately, 
was divine, but when they went 
through the tragic duet of "Red 
Ruffian, retire ! " it was, as Miss 
Martin afterwards remarked, " thrill- 
ing." And why (as Mr. Jennings 
Rodolph observed) why were they 
not engaged at one of the patent- 
theatres ? If he was to be told that 
their voices were not powerful enough 
to fill the House, his only reply was, 
that he would back himself for any 
amount to fill Russell-square— a state- 
ment in which the company, after 
hearing the duet, expressed their full 
belief ; so they all said it was shameful 
treatment ; and both Mr. and Mrs. 
Jennings Rodolph said it was shame- 
ful too ; and Mr. Jennings Rodolph 
looked very serious, and said he knew 
who his malignant opponents were, 
but they had better take care how far 
they w r ent, for if they irritated him 
too much he had not quite made up his 
mind whether he wouldn't bring the 
subject before Parliament; and they all 
agreed that it " 'ud serve 'em quite right, 
and it was very proper that such people 
should be made an example of." So, 
Mr. Jennings Rodolph said he 'd think 
of it. 

When the conversation resumed its 
former tone, Mr. Jennings Rodolph 
claimed his right to call upon a lady, 
and the right being conceded, trusted 
Miss Martin would favour the com- 
pany — a proposal which met with 
unanimous approbation, whereupon 
Miss Martin, after sundry hesitatings 
and coughings, with a preparatory 



THE MISTAKEN MILLINER. 



155 



choke or two, and an introductory 
declaration that she was frightened to 
death to attempt it before such great 
judges of the art, commenced a species 
of treble chirruping containing fre- 
quent allusions to some young gentle- 
man of the name of Hen-e-ry, with 
an occasional reference to madness 
and broken hearts. Mr. Jennings 
Rodolph, frequently interrupted the 
progress of the song, by ejacula- 
ting " Beautiful ! "— " Charming ! "— 
" Brilliant ! "— « Oh ! splendid," &c. ; 
and at its close the admiration of him- 
self, and his lady, knew no bounds. 

" Did you ever hear so sweet a 
voice, my dear ? " inquired Mr. Jen- 
nings Rodolph of Mrs. Jennings 
Rodolph. 

" Never ; indeed I never did, love f 
replied Mrs. Jennings Rodolph. 

* Don't you think Miss Martin with 
a little cultivation, would be very like 
Signora Marra Boni, my dear ? " asked 
Mr. Jennings Rodolph. 

" Just exactly the very thing that 
struck me, my love," answered Mrs. 
Jennings Rodolph. 

And thus the time passed away ; 
Mr. Jennings Rodolph played tunes 
on a walking-stick, and then went 
behind the parlour-door and gave his 
celebrated imitations of actors, edge- 
tools, and animals ; Miss Martin sang 
several other songs with increased 
admiration every time ; and even the 
funny old gentleman began singing. 
His song had properly seven verses, 
but as he couldn't recollect more than 
the first one he sang that over, seven 
times, apparently verv much to his 
own personal gratification. And then 
all the company sang the national 
anthem with national independence — 
each for himself, without reference to 
the other — and finally separated : all 
declaring that they never had spent so 
pleasant an evening : and Miss Martin 
inwardly resolving to adopt the advice 
of Mr. Jennings Rodolph, and to 
" come out " without delay. 

Now, " coming out," either in act- 
ing, or singing, or society, or facetious- 
ness, or any thing else, is all very 
well, and remarkably pleasant to the 



individual principally concerned, if he 
or she can but manage to come out 
with a burst, and being out, to keep 
out, and not go in again ; but, it does 
unfortunately happen that both con- 
summations are extremely difficult to 
accomplish, and that the difficulties, of 
getting out at all in the first instance, 
and if you surmount them, of keeping 
out in the second, are pretty much on 
a par, and no slight ones either — and 
so Miss Amelia Martin shortly dis^- 
covered. It is a singular fact (there 
being ladies in the case) that Miss 
Amelia Martin's principaL foible was 
vanity, and the leading characteristic 
of Mrs. Jennings Rodolph an attach- 
ment to dress. Dismal wailings were 
heard to issue from the second floor 
front, of number forty-seven, Drum- 
mond-street, George-stx-eet, Euston- 
square ; it was Miss Martin practising. 
Half-suppressed murmurs disturbed 
the calm dignity of the White Conduit 
orchestra at the commencement of the 
season. It was the appearance of Mrs. 
Jennings Rodolph in full dress, that 
occasioned them. Miss Martin studied 
incessantly — the practising was the 
consequence. Mrs. Jennings Rodolph 
taught gratuitously now and then — the 
dresses were the result. 

Weeks passed away ; the White 
Conduit season had begun, had pro- 
gressed, and was more than half over. 
The dressmaking business had fallen 
off, from neglect ; and its profits had 
dwindled away almost imperceptibly. 
A benefit-night approached ; Mr. 
Jennings Rodolph yielded to the 
earnest solicitations of Miss Amelia 
Martin, and introduced her personally 
to the " comic gentleman " Avhose 
benefit it was. The comic gentleman 
was all smiles and blandness — he had 
composed a duet, expressly for the 
occasion, and Miss Martin should sing 
it with him. The night arrived ; there 
was an immense room — ninety-seven 
sixpenn'orths of gin-and-water, thirty- 
two small glasses of brandy-and- 
water, five-and-twenty bottled ales, 
and forty-one neguses ; and the orna- 
mental painter's journeyman, with his 
wife and a select circle of acquaint- 



156 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



ance, were seated at one of the side- 
tables near the orchestra. The concert 
began. Song — sentimental — by a light- 
haired young gentleman in a blue coat, 
and bright basket buttons [applause]. 
Another song, doubtful, by another 
gentleman in another blue coat and 
more bright basket buttons — [in- 
creased applause]. Duet, Mr. Jennings 
Rodolph, and Mrs. Jennings Rodolph, 
" Red Ruffian, retire ! " — [great ap- 
plause]. Solo, Miss Julia Montague 
{positively on this occasion only) — " I 
-am a Friar " — [enthusiasm] . Original 
duet, comic — Mr. H. Taplin (the comic 
gentleman) and Miss Martin — " The 
Time of Day.' ' " Brayvo !— Bray vo ! " 
cried the ornamental painters journey- 
man's party, as Miss Martin was grace- 
fully led in by the comic gentleman. 
' c Go to work, Harry," cried the comic 
gentleman's personal friends. " Tap — 
tap — tap," went the leader's bow on 
the music-desk. The symphony began, 
and was soon afterwards followed by a 
faint kind of ventriloquial chirping, 
proceeding apparently from the deep- 
est recesses of the interior of Miss 
Amelia Martin. " Sing out" — shouted 
one gentleman in a white great-coat. 
" Don't be afraid to put the steam 
on, old gal," exclaimed another. 
" S — s — s — s — s — s — s " — went the 
five-and-twenty bottled ales. " Shame, 
shame ! " remonstrated the orna- 



mental painter's journeyman's party 
— " S — s — s — s" went the bottled ales 
again, accompanied by all the gins, and 
a majority of the brandies. 

" Turn them geese out," cried the 
ornamental painter's journeyman's 
party, with great indignation. 

" Sing out," whispered Mr. Jennings 
Rodolph. 

" So I do," responded Miss Amelia 
Martin. 

" Sing louder," said Mrs. Jennings 
Rodolph. 

"I can't," replied Miss Amelia 
Martin. 

" Off, off, off," cried the rest of the 
audience. 

"Bray-vo !" shouted the painter's 
party. It wouldn't do — Miss Amelia 
Martin left the orchestra, with much 
less ceremony than she had entered it; 
and, as she couldn't sing out, never 
came out. The general good humour 
was not restored until Mr. Jennings 
Rodolph had become purple in the 
face, by imitating divers quadrupeds 
for half an hour, without being able to 
render himself audible ; and, to this 
day, neither has Miss Amelia Martin's 
good humour been restored, nor the 
dresses made for and presented to 
Mrs. Jennings Rodolph, nor the vocal 
abilities which Mr. Jennings Rodolph 
once staked his professional reputation 
that Miss Martin possessed. 



THE DANCING ACADEMY. 



157 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE DANCING ACADEMY 



Op all the dancing academies that ever 
were established, there never was one 
more popular in its immediate vicinity 
than Signor Billsmethi's, of the 
"King's Theatre." It was not in 
Spring-gardens, or Newman-stoeet, or 
Berners-street, or Gower-street, or 
Charlotte-street, or Percy-street, or 
any other of the numerous streets 
which have been devoted time out of 
mind to professional people, dispen- 
saries, and boarding-houses ; it was 
not in the West-end at all — it rather 
approximated to the eastern portion 
of London, being situated in the popu- 
lous and improving neighbourhood of 
Gray's-inn-lane. It was not a dear 
dancing academy — four-and-sixpence a 
quarter is decidedly cheap upon the 
whole. It was very select, the number 
of pupils being strictly limited to 
seventy-five, and a quarter's payment 
in advance being rigidly exacted. 
There was public tuition and private 
tuition — an assembly-room and a par- 
lour. Signor Billsmethi's family were 
always thrown in with the parlour, and 
included in parlour price ; that is to 
say, a private pupil had Signor Bill- 
smethi's parlour to dance in, and 
Signor Billsmethi's family to dance 
with; and when he had been sufficiently 
broken in in the parlour, he began to 
run in couples in the Assembly-room. 

Such was the dancing academy of 
Signor Billsmethi, when Mr. Augustus 
Cooper, of Fetter-lane, first saw an 
unstamped advertisement walking 
leisurely down Holborn-hill, announc- 
ing to me world that Signor Billsmethi, 
of the King's Theatre, intended open- 
ing for the season with a Grand Ball. 

Now, Mr. Augustus Cooper was in 
the oil and colour line — just of age, 
with a little money, a little business, 
and a little mother, who, having 
managed her husband and Ms business 
in his lifetime took to managing her 



son and Ms business after his decease ; 
and so, somehow or other, he had 
been cooped up in the little back par- 
lour behind the shop on week-days, 
and in a little deal box without a lid 
(called by courtesy a pew) at Bethel 
Chapel, on Sundays, and had seen no 
more of the world than if he had been 
an infant all his days ; whereas Young 
White, at the Gas-fitter's over the way, 
three years younger than him, had 
been flaring away like winkin' — going 
to the theatre — supping at harmonic 
meetings — eating oysters by the barrel 
— drinking stout by the gallon — even 
stopping out all night, and coming 
home as cool in the morning as 
if nothing had happened. So Mr. 
Augustus Cooper made up his mind 
that he would not stand it any longer, 
and had that very morning expressed 
to his mother a firm determination to 
be " blowed," in the event of his not 
being instantly provided with a street- 
door key. And he was walking down 
Holborn-hill, thinking about all these 
things, and wondering how he could 
manage to get introduced into genteel 
society for the first time, when his 
eyes rested on Signor Billsmethi's 
announcement, which it immediately 
struck him was just the very thing he 
wanted ; for he should not only be able 
to select a genteel circle of acquaint- 
ance at once, out of the five-and-seventy 
pupils at four-and-sixpence a quarter, 
but should qualify himself at the same 
time to go through a hornpipe in pri- 
vate society, with pei'fect ease to him- 
self, and great delight to his friends. 
So, he stopped the unstamped adver- 
tisement — an animated sandwich, com- 
posed of a boy between two boards — 
and having procured a very small 
card with the Signor's address in- 
dented thereon, walked straight at 
once to the Signor's house — and very 
fast he walked too, for fear the list 



158 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



should be filled up, and the five-and- 
seventy completed, before he got there. 
'The Siguor was at home, and, what 
■was still more gratifying, he was an 
^Englishman ! Such a nice man — and 
so polite ! The list was not full, but 
it was a most extraordinary circum- 
stance that there was only just one 
vacancy, and even that one would 
have been filled up, that very morning, 
only Signor Billsmethi was dissatisfied 
with the reference, and, being very 
much afraid that the lady wasn't 
select, wouldn't take her. 

a And very much delighted I am, 
Mr. Cooper," said Signor Billsmethi, 
" that I did not take her. I assure 
you, Mr. Cooper — I don't say it to 
flatter you, for I know you're above it 
— that I consider myself extremely 
fortunate in having a gentleman of 
your manners and appearance, sir." 

" I am very glad of it too, sir," said 
Augustus Cooper. 

* f And I hope we shall be better 
acquainted, sir," said Signor Bill- 
smethi. 

a And I 'm sure I hope we shall too, 
sir," responded Augustus Cooper. Just 
then, the door opened, and in came a 
young lady, with her hair curled in a 
crop all over her head, and her shoes 
tied in sandals all over her ankles. 

"Dont run &way, my dear," said 
Signor Billsmethi ; for the young lady 
didn't know Mr. Cooper was there 
when she ran in, and was going to run 
out again in her modesty, all in con- 
fusion-like. "Don't run away, my 
dear," said Signor Billsmethi, " this is 
Mr. Cooper— Mr. Cooper, of Fetter- 
lane. Mr. Cooper, my daughter, sir — 
Miss Billsmethi, sir, who I hope will 
have the pleasure of dancing many a 
quadrille, minuet, gavotte, country- 
dance, fandango, double-hornpipe, and 
farinagholkajingo with you, sir. She 
dances them all, sir ; and so shall you 
sir before you 're a quarter older, sir." 
And Signor Billsmethi slapped Mr. 



smethi said they were as handsome a 
pair as ever he 'd wish to see ; upon 
which the young lady exclaimed, " Lor, 
pa ! " and blushed as red as Mr. 
Cooper himself — you might have 
thought they were both standing under 
a red lamp at a chemist's shop ; and 
before Mr. Cooper went away it was 
settled that he should join the family 
circle that very night — taking them, 
just as they were — no ceremony nor 
nonsense of that kind — and learn his 
positions, in order that he might lose 
no time, and be able to come out at the 
forthcoming ball. 

Well ; Mr. Augustus Cooper went 
away to one of the cheap shoemakers' 
shops in Holborn, where gentlemen's 
dress-pumps are seven-and-sixpence, 
and men's strong walking just nothing 
at all, and bought a pair of the regular 
seven-and-sixpenny, long- quartered, 
town mades, in which he astonished 
himself quite as much as his mother, 
and sallied forth to Signor BiUsmethi's. 
There were four other private pupils 
in the parlour : two ladies and two 
gentlemen. Such nice people ! Not 
a bit of pride about them. One of the 
ladies in particular, who was in train- 
ing for a Columbine, was remarkably 
affable ; and she and Miss Billsmethi 
took such an interest in Mr. Augustus 
Cooper, and joked and smiled, and 
looked so bewitching, that he got quite 
at home, and learnt his steps in no time. 
After the practising was over, Signor 
Billsmethi, and Miss Billsmethi, and 
Master Billsmethi, and a young lady, 
and the two ladies, and the two gentle- 
men, danced a quadrille — none of your 
slipping and sliding about, but regular 
warm work, flying into corners, and 
diving among chairs, and shooting out 
at the door, — something like dancing ! 
Signor Billsmethi in particular, not- 
withstanding his having a little fiddle 
to play all the time, was out on the 
landing every figure, and Master Bill- 
smethi, when every body else was 



Augustus Cooper on the back, as if he breathless, danced a hornpipe, with a 
had known him a dozen years, — so | cane in his hand, and a cheese-plate 

on his head, to the unqualified admira- 
tion of the whole company. Then, 
Signor Billsmethi insisted as they 



friendly ; — and Mr. Cooper bowed to 
the young lady, and the young lady 
curtseyed to him, and Signor Bill- 



THE DANCING ACADEMY. 



159 



were so happy, that they should all 
stay to supper, and proposed sending 
Master Billsmethi for the beer and 
spirits, whereupon the two gentlemen 
swore, " strike 'em wulgar if they 'd 
stand that ;" and were just .going 
to quarrel who should pay for it, when 
Mr. Augustus Cooper said he would, if 
they 'd have the kindness to allow him 
■ — and they had the kindness to allow 
him ; and Master Billsmethi brought 
the beer in a can, and the rum in a 
quart-pot. They had a regular night 
of it ; and Miss Billsmethi squeezed 
Mr. Augustus Cooper's hand under 
the table ; and Mr. Augustus Cooper 
returned the squeeze and returned 
home too, at something to six o'clock 
in the morning when he was put to 
bed by main force by the apprentice, 
after repeatedly expressing an uncon- 
trollable desire to pitch his revered 
parent out of the second-floor window, 
and to throttle the apprentice with his 
own neck-handkerchief. 

Weeks had worn on, and the seven- 
and-sixpenny town-mades had nearly 
worn out, when the night arrived for 
the grand dress-ball at which the whole 
of the five-and-seventy pupils were to 
meet together, for the first time that 
season, and to take out some portion of 
their respective four-and-sixpences in 
lamp-oil and fiddlers. Mr. Augustus 
Cooper had ordered a new coat for the 
occasion — a two-pound-tenner from 
Turnstile. It was his first appearance 
in public ; and, after a grand Sicilian 
shawl-dance by fourteen young ladies 
in character, he was to open the 
quadrille department with Miss Bill- 
smethi herself, with whom he had 
become quite intimate since his first 
introduction. It v:as a night ! Every 
thing was admirably arranged. The 
sandwich-boy took the hats and bon- 
nets at the street-door ; there was a 
turn-up bedstead in the back parlour, 
on which Miss Billsmethi made tea 
and coffee for such of the gentlemen 
as chose to pay for it, and such of the 
ladies as the gentlemen treated ; red 
port-wine negus and lemonade were 
handed round at eighteen-pence a 
head ; and, in pursuance of a previous 



engagement with the public-house at 
the corner of the street, an extra pot- 
boy was laid on for the occasion. In 
short, nothing could exceed the ar- 
rangements, except the company. 
Such ladies ! Such pink silk stockings ! 
Such artificial flowers ! Such a num- 
ber of cabs ! No sooner had one cab 
set down a couple of ladies, than 
another cab drove up and set down 
another couple of ladies, and they all 
knew : not only one another, but the_ 
majority of the gentlemen into the 
bargain, which made it all as pleasant 
and lively as could be. Signer Bill- 
smethi, in black tights, with a large 
blue bow in his buttonhole, introduced 
the ladies to such of the gentlemen as 
were strangers : and the ladies talked 
away — and laughed they did — it was 
delightful to see them. 

As to the shawl-dance, it was the 
most exciting thing that ever was 
beheld ; there was such a whisking, 
and rustling, and fanning, and getting 
ladies into a tangle with artificial 
flowers, and then disentangling them 
again ! And as to Mr. Augustus 
Cooper's share in the quadrille, he got 
through it admirably. He was missing 
from his partner, now and then, cer- 
tainly, and discovered on such occa- 
sions to be either dancing with 
laudable perseverance in another 
set, or sliding about in perspective, 
without any definite object ; but, 
generally speaking, they managed to 
shove him through the figure, until 
he turned up in the right place. Be 
this as it may, when he had finished, a 
great many ladies and gentlemen came 
up and complimented him very much, 
and said they had never seen a begin- 
ner do anything like it before ; and 
Mr. Augustus Cooper was perfectly 
satisfied with himself, and every body 
else into the bargain ; and " stood " 
considerable quantities of spirits-and- 
water, negus, and compounds, for the 
use and behoof of two or three dozen 
very particular friends, selected from 
the select circle of five-and-seventy 
pupils. 

Now, whether it was the strength of 
the compounds, or the beauty of the 



160 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



ladies, or what not, it did so happen 
that Mi\ Augustus Cooper encouraged, 
rather than repelled, the very flatter- 
ing attentions of a young lady in brown 
gauze over white calico who had ap- 
peared particularly struck with him 
from the first ; and when the encou- 
ragements had been prolonged for 
some time, Miss Billsmethi betrayed 
her spite and jealousy thereat by 
calling the young lady in brown gauze 
a a creeter," which induced the young 
lady in brown gauze to retort, in cer- 
tain sentences containing a taunt 
founded on the payment of four- 
and-sixpence a quarter, which re- 
ference Mr. Augustus Cooper, being 
then and there in a state of consider- 
able bewilderment, expressed his entire 
concurrence in. Miss Billsmethi, thus 
renounced, forthwith began screaming 
in the loudest key of her voice, at the 
rate of fourteen screams a minute ; 
and being unsuccessful, in an onslaught 
on the eyes and face, first of the lady 
in gauze and then of Mr. Augustus 
Cooper, called distractedly on the other 
three-and-seventy pupils to furnish her 
with oxalic acid for her own private 
drinking ; and, the call not being 
honoured, made another rush at Mr. 
Cooper, and then had her stay-lace cut, 
and was carried off to bed. Mr. 
Augustus Cooper, not being remark- 
able for quickness of apprehension, 
was at a loss to understand what all 



this meant, until Signor Billsmethi ex- 
plained it in a most satisfactory 
manner, by stating to the pupils that 
Mr. Augustus Cooper had made and 
confirmed divers promises of marriage 
to his daughter on divers occasions, 
and had now basely deserted her ; on 
which, the indignation of the pupils 
became universal ; and as several 
chivalrous gentlemen inquired rather 
pressingly of Mr. Augustus Cooper, 
whether he required anything for his 
own use, or, in other words, whether 
he "wanted any thing for himself," he 
deemed it prudent to make a precipi- 
tate retreat. And the upshot of the 
matter was, that a lawyer's letter 
came next day, and an action was com- 
menced next week ; and that Mr. 
Augustus Cooper, after walking twice 
to the Serpentine for the purpose of 
drowning himself, and coming twice 
back without doing it, made a confidante 
of his mother, who compromised the 
matter with twenty pounds from the 
till : which made twenty pounds four 
shillings and sixpence paid to Signor 
Billsmethi, exclusive of treats and 
pumps. And Mr. Augustus Cooper 
went back and lived with his mother, 
and there he lives to this day ; and as 
he has lost his ambition for society, 
and never goes into the world, he will 
never see this account of himself, and 
will never be any the wiser. 



SHABBY-GENTEEL PEOPLE. 



161 



CHAPTER X. 



SHABBY-GENTEEL PEOPLE. 



There are certain descriptions of 
people who, oddly enough, appear to 
appertain exclusively to the metro- 
polis. You meet them, every day, in 
the streets of London, but no one 
ever encounters them elsewhere; they 
seem indigenous to the soil, and to 
belong as exclusively to London as its 
own smoke, or the dingy bricks and 
mortar. We could illustrate the 
remark by a variety of examples, but, 
in our present sketch, we will only 
advert to one class as a specimen — 
that class which is so aptly and expres- 
sively designated as u shabby-genteel." 

Now, shabby people, God knows, may 
be found any where, and genteel people 
are not articles of greater scarcity out 
of London than in it ; but this com- 
pound of the two — this shabby-gentility 
— is as purely local as the statue at 
Charing-cross, or the pump at Aldgate. 
It is worthy of remark, too, that only 
men are shabby-genteel ; a woman is 
always either dirty and slovenly in the 
extreme, or neat and respectable, how- 
ever poverty-stricken in appearance. 
A very poor man, "who has seen 
better days," as the phrase goes, is a 
strange compound of dirty-slovenliness 
and wretched attempts at faded smart- 
ness. 

We will endeavour to explain our 
conception of the term which forms 
the title of this paper. If you meet a 
man, lounging up Drury-lane, or lean- 
ing with his back against a post in 
Long-acre, with his hands in the 
pockets of a pair of drab trousers 
plentifully besprinkled with grease- 
spots : the trousers made very full 
over the boots, and ornamented with 
two cords down the outside of each leg 
— wearing, also, what has been a brown 
coat with bright buttons, and a hat 
very much pinched up at the sides, 
cocked over his right eye — don't pity 
him. He is not shabby-genteel. The 

No. 183. j 



" harmonic meetings " at some fourth- 
rate public-house, or the purlieus of a 
private theatre, are his chosen haunts; 
he entertains a rooted antipathy to any 
kind of work, and is on familiar terms , 
with several pantomime men at the 
large houses. But, if you see hurrying 
along a bye-street, keeping as close as 
he can to the area-railings, a man of 
about forty or fifty, clad in an old 
rusty suit of threadbare black cloth 
which shines with constant wear as if 
it had been bees-waxed — the trousers 
tightly strapped down, partly for the 
look of the thing and partly to keep 
his old shoes from slipping off at the 
heels, — if you observe, too, that his 
yellowish-white neckerchief is care- 
fully pinned up, to conceal the tattered 
garment underneath, and that his 
hands are encased in the remains of 
an old pah' of beaver gloves, you may 
set him down as a shabby-genteel man. 
A glance at that depressed face, and 
timorous air of conscious poverty, will 
make your heart ache — always sup- 
posing that you are neither a philoso- 
pher nor a political economist. 

We were once haunted by a shabby- 
genteel man ; he was bodily present to 
our senses all day, and he was in our 
mind's eye all night. The man of 
whom Sir Walter Scott speaks in his 
Demonology, did not suffer half the 
persecution from his imaginary gen- 
tleman-usher in black velvet, that we 
sustained from our friend in quondam 
black cloth. He first attracted our 
notice, by sitting opposite to us in the 
reading-room at the British Museum; 
and what made the man more remark- 
able was, that he always had before 
him a couple of shabby-genteel books 
— two old dogs-eared folios, in moiddy 
worm-eaten covers, which had once 
been smart. He was in his chair, every 
morning, just as the clock struck ten ; 
he was always the last to leave the 
11 



162 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



room in the afternoon ; and when he 
did, he quitted it with the air of a man 
who knew not where else to go, for 
warmth and quiet. There he used to 
sit all day, as close to the table as pos- 
sible, in order to conceal the lack of 
buttons on his coat : with his old hat 
carefully deposited at his feet, where 
he evidently nattered himself it escaped 
observation. 

About two o'clock, you would see 
him munching a French roll or a penny 
loaf ; not taking it boldly out of his 
pocket at once, like a man who knew 
he was only making a lunch; but break- 
ing off little bits in his pocket, and 
eating them by stealth. He knew too 
well it was his dinner. 

When we first saw this poor object, 
we thought it quite impossible that his 
attire could ever become worse. We 
even went so far, as to speculate on the 
possibility of his shortly appearing in 
a decent second-hand suit. We knew 
nothing about the matter ; he grew 
more and more shabby-genteel every 
day. The buttons dropped off his 
waistcoat, one by one ; then, he but- 
toned his coat ; and when one side of 
the coat was reduced to the same con- 
dition as the waistcoat, he buttoned it 
over on the other side. He looked 
somewhat better at the beginning of 
the week than at the conclusion, 
because the neckerchief, though yellow, 
was not quite so dingy; and, in the midst 
of all this wretchedness, he never ap- 
peared without gloves and straps. He 
remained in this state for a week or 
two. At length, one of the buttons on 
the back of the coat fell off, and then 
the man himself disappeared, and we 
thought he was dead. 

We were sitting at the same table 
about a week after his disappearance, 
and as our eyes rested on his vacant 
chair, we insensibly fell into a train of 
meditation on the subject of his retire- 
ment from public life. We were won- 
dering whether he had hung himself, or 
thrown himself off a bridge — whether 
he really was dead or had only been 
arrested — when our conjectures were 
suddenly set at rest by the entry of 
the man himself. He had under- 



gone some strange metamorphosis, and 
walked up the centre of the room with 
an air which showed he was fully con- 
scious of the improvement in his 
appearance. It was very odd. His 
clothes were a fine, deep, glossy black; 
and yet they looked like the same 
suit ; nay, there were the very darns 
with which old acquaintance had made 
us familiar. The hat, too — nobody 
could mistake the shape of that hat, 
with its high crown gradually increas- 
ing in circumference towards the top. 
Long service had imparted to it a red- 
dish-brown tint; but, now, it was as 
black as the coat. The truth flashed 
suddenly upon us — they had been 
"revived." It is a deceitful liquid 
that black and blue reviver ; we have 
watched its effects on many a shabby- 
genteel man. It betrays its victims 
into a temporary assumption of im- 
portance: possibly into the purchase of 
a new pair of gloves, or a cheap stock, 
or some other trifling article of dress. 
It elevates their spirits for a week, 
only to depress them, if possible, below 
their original level. It was so in this 
case ; the transient dignity of the un- 
happy man decreased, in exact propor- 
tion as the " reviver " wore oft'. The 
knees of the unmentionables, and the 
elbows of the coat, and the seams 
generally, soon began to get alarmingly 
white. The hat was once more depo- 
sited under the table, and its owner 
crept into his seat as quietly as ever. 

There was a week of incessant small 
rain and mist. At its expiration the 
" reviver " had entirely vanished, and 
the shabby-genteel man never after- 
wards attempted to effect any improve- 
ment in his outward appearance. 

It would be difficult to name any 
particular part of town as the prin- 
cipal resort of shabby-genteel men. 
We have met a great many persons 
of this description in the neighbour- 
hood of the inns of court. They may 
be met with, in Holborn, between eight 
and ten any morning; and whoever has 
the curiosity to enter the Insolvent 
Debtors' Court will observe, both 
among spectators and practitioners, a 
great variety of them. We never 



SHABBY-GENTEEL PEOPLE. 



163 



went on 'Change, by any chance, with- 
out seeing some shabby-genteel men, 
and we have often wondered what 
earthly business they can have there. 
They will sit there, for hours, leaning 
on great, dropsical, mildewed umbrel- 
las, or eating Abernethy biscuits. No- 
body speaks to them, nor they to any 
one. On consideration, we remember 
to have occasionally seen two shabby- 
genteel men conversing together on 
'Change, but our experience assures 
us that this is an uncommon circum- 
stance, occasioned by the offer of a 
pinch of snuff, or some such civility. 

It would be a task of equal difficulty, 
either to assign any particular spot for 
the residence of these beings, or to 
endeavour to enumerate their general 
occupations. We were never engaged 
in business with more than one shabby- 
genteel man ; and he was a drunken 



engraver, and lived in a damp back- 
parlour in a new row of houses at 
Camden-town, half street, half brick- 
field, somewhere near the canal. A 
shabby-genteel man may have no oc- 
cupation, or he may be a corn agent, 
or a coal agent, or a wine agent, 
or a collector of debts, or a broker's 
assistant, or a broken-down attorney. 
He may be a clerk of the lowest de- 
scription, or a contributor to the press 
of the same grade. Whether our* 
readers have noticed these men, in their 
walks, as often as we have, we know 
not ; this we know — that the miserably 
poor man (no matter whether he owes 
his distresses to his own conduct, or 
that of others) who feels his poverty 
and vainly strives to conceal it, is one 
of the most pitiable objects in human 
nature. Such objects, with few excep- 
tions, are shabby-genteel people. 



m2 



164 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



CHAPTER XL 



MAKING A NIGHT OF IT. 



Damon and Pythias were undoubtedly 
very good fellows in their way : the 
former for his extreme readiness to 
put in special bail for a friend: and the 
latter for a certain trump-like punc- 
tuality in turning up just in the very 
nick of time, scarcely less remarkable. 
Many points in their character have, 
however, grown obsolete. Damons are 
rather hard to find, in these days of im- 
prisonment for debt (except the sham 
ones, and they cost half-a-crown) ; and, 
as to the Pythiases, the few that have 
existed in these degenerate times, have 
had an unfortunate knack of making 
themselves scarce, at the very moment 
when their appearance would have 
been strictly classical. If the actions 
of these heroes, however, can find no 
parallel in modern times, their friend- 
ship can. We have Damon and Pythias 
on the one hand. We have Potter and 
Smithers on the other ; and, lest the 
two last-mentioned names should never 
have reached the ears of our unen- 
lightened readers, we can do no better 
than make them acquainted with the 
owners thereof. 

Mr. Thomas Potter, then, was a 
clerk in the city, and Mr. Robert 
Smithers was a ditto in the same ; 
their incomes were limited, but their 
friendship was unbounded. They lived 
in the same street, walked into town 
every morning at the same hour, dined 
at the same slap-bang every day, and 
revelled in each other's company every 
night. They were knit together by the 
closest ties of intimacy and friendship, 
or, as Mr. Thomas Potter touchingly ob- 
served, they were " thick-and-thin pals, 
and nothing but it." There was a spice 
of romance in Mr. Smithers's disposi- 
tion, a ray of poetry, a gleam of miser}-, 
a sort of consciousness of he didn't ex- 
actly know what, coming across him 
he didn't precisely know why — which 
stood out in fine relief against the off- 



hand, dashing, amateur-pickpocket- 
sort-of-manner, which distinguished 
Mr. Potter in an eminent degree. 

The peculiarity of their respective 
dispositions, extended itself to their 
individual costume. Mr. Smithers ge- 
nerally appeared in public in a surtout 
and shoes, with a narrow black necker- 
chief and a brown hat, very much turned 
up at the sides — peculiarities which 
Mr. Potter whoUy eschewed, for it was 
his ambition to do something in the 
celebrated " kiddy " or stage-coach way, 
and he had even gone so far as to invest 
capital in the purchase of a rough blue 
coat with wooden buttons, made upon 
the fireman's principle, in which, with 
the addition of a low-crowned, flower- 
pot-saucer-shaped hat, he had created 
no inconsiderable sensation at the Al- 
bion in Little Russell-street, and divers 
other places of public and fashionable 
resort. 

Mr. Potter and Mr. Smithers had 
mutually agreed that, on the receipt 
of their quarter's salary, they would 
jointly and in company "spend the 
evening " — an evident misnomer — the 
spending applying, as everybody knows, 
not to the evening itself but to all the 
money the individual may chance to 
be possessed of, on the occasion to which 
reference is made ; and they had likewise 
agreed that, on the evening aforesaid, 
they would " make a night of it " — an 
expressive term, implying the borrow- 
ing of several hours from to-morrow 
morning, adding them to the night 
before, and manufacturing a compound 
night of the whole. 

The quarter-day arrived at last — we 
say at last, because quarter-days are as 
eccentric as comets: moving wonder- 
fully quick when you have a good deal 
to pay, and marvellously slow when 
you have a little to receive. Mr. Thomas 
Potter and Mr. Robert Smithers met 
by appointment to begin the evening 



MAKING A NIGHT OP IT. 



165 



with a dinner; and a nice, snug, com- 
fortable dinner they had, consisting of 
a little procession of four chops and 
four kidneys, following each other, sup- 
ported on either side by a pot of the real 
draught stout, and attended by divers 
cushions of bread, and wedges of cheese. 

When the cloth was removed, Mr. 
Thomas Potter ordered the waiter to 
bring in, two goes of his best Scotch 
whiskey, with warm water and sugar, 
and a couple of his "very mildest" 
Havannahs, which the waiter did. Mr. 
Thomas Potter mixed his grog, and 
lighted his cigar; Mr. Robert Smithers 
did the same ; and then, Mr. Thomas 
Potter jocularly proposed as the first 
toast, " the abolition of all offices what- 
ever" (not sinecures, but counting- 
houses), which was immediately drunk 
by Mr. Robert Smithers, with enthusi- 
astic applause. So they went on, talk- 
ing politics, puffing cigars and sipping 
whiskey-and- water, until the " goes " 
— most appropriately so called — were 
both gone, which Mr. Robert Smithers 
perceiving, immediately ordered in two 
more goes of the best Scotch whiskey, 
and two more of the very mildest Ha- 
vannahs ; and the goes kept coming in, 
and the mild Havannahs kept going out, 
until, what with the drinking, and light- 
ing, and puffing, and the stale ashes on 
the table, and the tallow-grease on the 
cigars, Mr. Robert Smithers began to 
doubt the mildness of the Havannahs, 
and to feel very much as if he had 
been sitting in a hackney-coach with 
his back to the horses. 

As to Mr. Thomas Potter, he ivould 
keep laughing out loud, and volunteer- 
ing inarticulate declarations that he 
was " all right ;" in proof of which, he 
feebly bespoke the evening paper after 
the next gentleman, but finding it a 
matter of some difficulty to discover 
any news in its columns, or to ascertain 
distinctly whether it had any columns 
at all, walked slowly out to look for 
the moon, and, after coming back quite 
pale with looking up at the sky so long, 
and attempting to express mirth at 
Mr. Robert Smithers having fallen 
asleep, by various galvanic chuckles, 
laid his head on his arm, and went 



to sleep also. When he awoke again, 
Mr. Robert Smithers awoke too, and 
they both very gravely agreed that it 
was extremely unwise to eat so many 
pickled walnuts with the chops, as it 
was a notorious fact that they always 
made people queer and sleepy; indeed, 
if it had not been for the whiskey and 
cigars, there was no knowing what 
harm they mightn't have done 'em. 
So they took some coffee, and after 
paying the bill, — twelve and twopence 
the dinner, and the odd tenpence for 
the waiter — thirteen shillings in all — 
started out on their expedition to 
manufacture a night. 

It was just half-past eight, so they 
thought they couldn't do better than 
go at half-price to the slips at the City 
Theatre, which they did accordingly. 
Mr. Robert Smithers, who had become 
extremely poetical after the settlement 
of the bill, enlivening the walk by in- 
forming Mr. Thomas Potter in confi- 
fidence that he felt an inward presen- 
timent of approaching dissolution, and 
subsequently embellishing the theatre, 
by falling asleep, with his head and 
both arms gracefully drooping over the 
front of the boxes. 

Such was the quiet demeanour of 
the unassuming Smithers, and such 
were the happy effects of Scotch whis- 
key and Havannahs on that interest- 
ing person ! But Mr. Thomas Potter, 
whose great aim it was to be considered 
as a " knowing card," a " fast goer," 
and so forth, conducted himself in a 
very different manner, and commenced 
going very fast indeed — rather too fast 
at last, for the patience of the audience 
to keep pace with him. On his first 
entry, he contented himself by ear- 
nestly calling upon the gentlemen in 
the gallery to " flare up," accompany- 
ing the demand with another request, 
expressive of his wish that they would 
instantaneously " form a union," both 
which requisitions were responded to, 
in the manner most in vogue on such 
occasions. 

" Give that dog a bone !" cried one 
gentleman in his shirt-sleeves. 

"Where have you been a having 
half a pint of intermediate beer ? " 



166 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



cried a second. " Tailor !" screamed 
a third. " Barber's clerk ! " shouted a 
fourth. " Throw him o — ver !" roared 
a fifth ; while numerous voices concur- 
red in desiring Mr. Thomas Potter to 
"go home to his mother ! " All these 
taunts Mr. Thomas Potter received 
with supreme contempt, cocking the 
low-crowned hat a little more on one 
side, whenever any reference was made 
to his personal appearance, and, stand- 
ing up with his arms a-kimbo, express- 
ing defiance melo-dramatically. 

The overture — to which these va- 
rious sounds had been an ad libitum 
accompaniment — concluded, the second 
piece began, and Mr. Thomas Potter, 
emboldened by impunity, proceeded to 
behave in a most unprecedented and 
outrageous manner. First of all, he 
imitated the shake of the principal 
female singer ; then, groaned at the 
blue fire, then, affected to be frightened 
into convulsions of terror at the ap- 
pearance of the ghost ; and, lastly, not 
only made a running commentary, in 
an audible voice, upon the dialogue on 
the stage, but actually awoke Mr. 
Robert Smithers, who, hearing his 
companion making a noise, and hav- 
ing a very indistinct notion where he 
was, or what was required of him, im- 
mediately, by way of imitating a good 
example, set up the most unearthly, 
unremitting, and appalling howling 
that ever audience heard. It was too 
much. " Turn them out ! " was the 
general cry. A noise, as of shuffling of 
feet, and men being knocked up with 
violence against wainscotting, was 
heard : a hurried dialogue of * Come 
out 1 "— « I won't ! "— " You shall ! " 
— " I shan't ! " — " Give me your card, 
Sir ! " — " You 're a scoundrel, Sir ! " 
and so forth succeeded. A round of 
applause betokened the approbation of 
the audience, and Mr. Robert Smithers 
and Mr. Thomas Potter found them- 
selves shot with astonishing swiftness 
into the road, without having had the 
trouble of once putting foot to ground 
during the whole progress of their rapid 
descent. 

Mr. Robert Smithers, being constitu- 
tionally one of the slow-goers, and hav- 



ing had quite enough of fast-going, in the 
course of his recent expulsion to last 
until the quarter-day then next ensuing 
at the very least, had no sooner emerged 
with his companion from the precincts 
of Milton-street, than he proceeded to 
indulge in circuitous references to the 
beauties of sleepj mingled with distant 
allusions to the propriety of returning 
to Islington, and testing the influence 
of their patent Bramahs over the 
street-door locks to which they respec- 
tively belonged. Mr. Thomas Potter, 
however, was valorous and peremptory. 
They had come out to make a night of 
it: and a night must be made. So 
Mr. Robert Smithers, who was three 
parts dull, and the other dismal, de- 
spairingly assented ; and they went 
into a wine-vaults, to get materials for 
assisting them in making a night ; 
where they found a good many young 
ladies, and various old gentlemen, and 
a plentiful sprinkling of hackney- 
coachmen and cab-drivers, all drinking 
and talking together ; and Mr. Thomas 
Potter and Mr. Robert Smithers drank 
small glasses of brandy, and large 
glasses of soda, until they began to have 
a very confused idea, either of things 
in general, or of anything in particular; 
and, when they had done treating 
themselves they began to treat every- 
body else ; and the rest of the enter- 
tainment was a confused mixture of 
heads and heels, black eyes and blue 
uniforms, mud and gas-lights, thick 
doors, and stone paving. 

Then, as standard novelists expres- 
sively inform us — " all was a blank I" 
and in the morning the blank was 
filled up with the words " Station- 
house," and the station-house was 
filled up with Mr. Thomas Potter, Mr. 
Robert Smithers, and the major part 
of their wine-vault companions of the 
preceding night, with a comparatively 
small portion of clothing of any kind. 
And it was disclosed at the Police- 
office, to the indignation of the Bench, 
and the astonishment of the spectators, 
how one Robert Smithers, aided and 
abetted by one Thomas Potter, had 
knocked down and beaten, in divers 
streets, at different times, five men 






MAKING A NIGHT OF IT. 



167 



four boys, and three women ; how the 
said Thomas Potter had feloniously 
obtained possession of five door- 
knockers, two bell-handles, and a 
bonnet ; how Robert Smithers, his 
friend, had sworn, at least forty pounds' 
worth of oaths, at the rate of five 
shillings a piece; terrified whole streets 
full of Her Majesty's subjects with 
awful shrieks, and alarms of fire ; de- 
stroyed the uniforms of five police- 
men ; and committed various other 
atrocities, too numerous to recapitulate. 
And the magistrate, after an appro- 
priate reprimand, fined Mr. Thomas 



Potter and Mr. Robert Smithers five 
shillings each, for being, what the law 
vulgarly terms, drunk ; and thirty-four 
pounds for seventeen assaults at forty 
shillings a-head, with liberty to speak 
to the prosecutors. 

The prosecutors were spoken to, and 
Messrs. Potter and Smithers lived on 
credit, for a quarter, as best they might; 
and, although the prosecutors expres- 
sed their readiness to be assaulted 
twice a- week, on the same terms, they 
have never since been detected in 
" making a night of it." 



168 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE PKISONERS VAX. 



We were passing the corner of Bow- 
street, on our return from a lounging 
excursion the other afternoon, when a 
crowd, assembled round the door of 
the Police Office, attracted our atten- 
tion. We turned up the street accord- 
ingly. There were thirty or forty 
people, standing on the pavement 
and half across the road ; and a few 
stragglers were patiently stationed on 
the opposite side of the way — all evi- 
dently waiting in expectation of some 
arrival. We waited too, a few minutes, 
but nothing occurred ; so, we turned 
round to an unshorn sallow-looking 
cobbler, who was standing next us with 
his hands under the bib of his apron, 
and put the usual question of " What 's 
the matter?" The cobbler eyed us 
from head to foot, with superlative 
contempt, and laconically replied 
« Nuffin." 

Now, we were perfectly aware that 
if two men stop in the street to look 
at any given object, or even to gaze 
in the air, two hundred men will be 
assembled in no time ; but, as we knew 
very well that no crowd of people could 
by possibility remain in a street for 
five minutes without getting up a little 
amusement among themselves, unless 
they had some absorbing object in 
view, the natural inquiry next in order 
was, " What are all these people wait- 
ing here for ?" — " Her Majesty's car- 
riage," replied the cobbler. This was 
still more extraordinary. We could 
not imagine what earthly business Her 
Majesty's carriage could have at the 
Public Office, Bow-street. We were 
beginning to ruminate on the possible 
causes of such an uncommon appear- 
ance, when a general exclamation from 
all the boys in the crowd of " Here 's 
the wan !" caused us to raise our 
heads, and look up the street. 

The covered vehicle, in which 
prisoners are conveyed from the police 



offices to the different prisons, was 
coming along at full speed. It then 
occurred to us, for the first time, that 
Her Majesty's carriage was merely 
another name for the prisoners' van, 
conferred upon it, not only by reason 
of the superior gentility of the term, 
but because the aforesaid van is main- 
tained at Her Majesty's expense : 
having been originally started for the 
exclusive accommodation of ladies and 
gentlemen under the necessity of visit- 
ing the various houses of call known 
by the general denomination of " Her 
Majesty's Gaols." 

The van drew up at the office door, 
and the people thronged round the 
steps, just leaving a little alley for the 
prisoners to pass through. Our friend 
the cobbler, and the other stragglers, 
crossed over, and we followed their 
example. The driver, and another 
man who had been seated by his side 
in front of the vehicle, dismounted, 
and were admitted into the office. The 
office- door was closed after them, and 
the crowd were on the tiptoe of ex- 
pectation. 

After a few sainutes delay, the door 
again opened, and the two first pri- 
soners appeared. They were a couple 
of girls, of whom the elder could not 
be more than sixteen, and the younger 
of whom had certainly not attained 
her fourteenth year. That they were 
sisters, was evident, from the resem- 
blance which still subsisted between 
them, though two additional years of 
depravity had fixed their brand upon 
the elder girl's features, as legibly as if 
a red-hot iron had seared them. They 
were both gaudily dressed, the younger 
one especially ; and, although there was 
a strong similarity between them in 
both respects, which was rendered the 
more obvious by their being handcuffed 
together, it is impossible to conceive a 
greater contrast than the demeanour 



THE PRISONERS' VAN. 



169 



of the two presented. The younger 
girl was weeping bitterly — not for 
display, or in the hope of producing 
effect, but for very shame; her face 
was buried in her handkerchief ; and 
her whole manner was but too ex- 
pressive of bitter and unavailing 
sorrow. 

" How long are you for, Emily ? " 
screamed a red-faced woman in the 
crowd. " Six weeks and labour," re- 
plied the elder girl with a flaunting 
laugh ; " and that's better than the 
stone jug any how ; the mill 's a deal 
better than the Sessions, and here 's 
Bella a-going too for the first time. 
Hold up your head, you chicken," she 
continued, boisterously tearing the 
other girl's handkerchief away ; "Hold 
up your head, and show 'em your face, 
I an't jealous, but I 'm blessed if I an't 
game !" — " That's right, old gal," ex- 
claimed a man in a paper cap, who, in 
common with the greater part of the 
crowd, had been inexpressibly de- 
lighted with this little incident. — 
" Right! " replied the girl ! "ah, to be 
sure ; what 's the odds, eh ? " — " Come ! 
In with you," interrupted the driver. 
— " Don't you be in a hurry, coach- 
man," replied the girl, " and recollect 
I want to be set down in Cold Bath 
Fields — large house with a high 
garden-wall in front ; you can't mis- 
take it. Hallo. Bella, where are you 
going to — you'll pull my precious arm 
off ! " This was addressed to the 
younger girl, who, in her anxiety to 
hide herself in the caravan, had 
ascended the steps first, and forgotten 
the strain upon the handcuff ; " Come 
down, and let 's show you the way." 
And after jerking the miserable girl 
down with a force which made her 
stagger on the pavement, she got into 



the vehicle, and was followed by her 
wretched companion. 

These two girls had been thrown 
upon London streets, their vices and 
debauchery, by a sordid and rapacious 
mother. What the younger girl was, 
then, the elder had been once ; and what 
the elder then was, the younger must 
soon become. A melancholy prospect, 
but how surely to be realised ; a tragic 
drama, but how often acted ! Turn to 
the prisons and police offices of Lon- 
don — nay, look into the very streets 
themselves. These things pass before 
our eyes, day after day, and hour after 
hour — they have become such matters 
of course, that they are utterly disre- 
garded. The progress of these girls 
in ci'ime will be as rapid as the flight 
of a pestilence, resembling it too in its 
baneful influence and wide-spreading 
infection. Step by step, how many 
wretched females, within the sphere of 
every man's observation, have become 
involved in a career of vice, frightful 
to contemplate ; hopeless at its com- 
mencement, loathsome and repulsive 
in its course ; friendless, forlorn, and 
unpitied, at its miserable conclusion ! 

There were other prisoners — boys 
of ten, as hardened in vice as men of 
fifty — a houseless vagrant, going joy- 
fully to prison as a place of food and 
shelter, handcuffed to a man whose 
prospects were ruined, character lost, 
and family rendered destitute, by his 
first offence. Our curiosity, however, 
was satisfied. The first group had left 
an impression on our mind we would 
gladly have avoided, and would wil- 
lingly have effaced. 

The crowd dispersed ; the vehicle 
rolled away with its load of guilt and 
misfortune ; and we saw no more of 
the Prisoners' Van. 



170 



SKETCHES BY BOZ, 



TALES. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE BOARDING-HOUSE. CHAPTER I. 



Mrs. Tibbs was, beyond all dispute, 
the most tidy, fidgety, thrifty, little 
personage that ever inhaled the smoke 
of London ; and the house of Mrs. 
Tibbs was, decidedly, the neatest in all 
Great Coram-street. The area and the 
area steps, and the street-door and the 
street-door steps, and the brass handle, 
and the door-plate, and the knocker, 
and the fan-fight, were all as clean and 
bright as indefatigable white-washing, 
and hearth-stoning, and scrubbing and 
rubbing, could make them. The won- 
der was, that the brass door-plate, with 
the interesting inscription " Mrs. 
Tibbs," had never caught fire from 
constant friction, so perseveringly was 
it polished. There were meat-safe- 
looking blinds in the parlour windows, 
blue and gold curtains in the drawing- 
room, and spring-roller blinds, as Mrs. 
Tibbs was wont in the pride of her 
heart to boast, " all the way up." 
The bell-lamp in the passage looked as 
clear as a soap-bubble ; you could see 
yourself in all the tables, and French- 
polish yourself on any one of the 
chairs. The bannisters were bees- 
waxed ; and the very stair-wires made 
your eyes wink, they were so glittering. 
Mrs. Tibbs was somewhat short of 
stature, and Mr. Tibbs was by no 
means a large man. He had, more- 
over, very short legs, but, by way of 
indemnification, his face was peculiarly 
long. He was to his wife what the 
is in 90 — he was of some importance 
with her — he was nothing without her. 
Mrs. Tibbs was always talking. Mr. 
Tibbs rarely spoke ; but, if it were at 
any time possible to put in a word, 



when he should have said nothing at all, 
he had that talent. Mrs. Tibbs detested 
long stories, and Mr. Tibbs had one, 
the conclusion of which had never 
been heard by his most intimate 
friends. It always began, " I recollect 
when I was in the volunteer corps, in 
eighteen hundred and six," — but, as he 
spoke very slowly and softly, and his 
I better half very quickly and loudly, he 
rarely got beyond the introductory 
sentence. He was a melancholy speci- 
men of the story-teller. He was the 
wandering Jew of Joe Millerism. 

Mr. Tibbs enjoyed a small inde- 
pendence from the pension-list — about 
43Z. 15s. 10cZ. a-year. His father, 
mother, and five interesting scions 
from the same stock drew a like sum 
from the revenue of a grateful country, 
though for what particular service 
was never known. But, as this 
said independence was not quite suffi- 
cient to furnish two people with all 
the luxuries of this fife, it had occurred 
to the busy little spouse of Tibbs, that 
the best thing she could do with a 
legacy of 700Z., would be to take and 
furnish a tolerable house — somewhere 
in that partially-explored tract of 
country which lies between the British 
Museum, and a remote village called 
Somers' town — for the reception of 
boarders. Great Coram-street was the 



spot pitched upon. The house had 
been furnished accordingly ; two female 
servants and a boy engaged ; and an 
advertisement inserted in the morning 
papers, informing the public that " Six 
individuals would meet with all the 
comforts of a cheerful musical home 



THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 



171 



in a select private family, residing | 
within ten minutes walk of" — every- 
where. Answers out of number were 
received, with all sorts of initials ; all 
the letters of the alphabet seemed to 
be seized with a sudden wish to go out 
boarding and lodging ; voluminous was 
the correspondence between Mrs. 
Tibbs and the applicants; and most 
profound was the secresy observed. 
"E." didn't like this, "I." could'nt 
think of putting up with that ; 
"I. 0. U." didn't think the terms 
would suit him ; and " G. R." had 
never slept in a French bed. The re- 
sult, however, was, that three gentle- 
men became inmates of Mrs. Tibbs's 
house, on terms which were " agree- 
able to all parties." In went the 
advertisement again, and a lady with 
her two daughters, proposed to in- 
crease — not their families, but Mrs. 
Tibbs's. 

" Charming woman, that Mrs. 
Maplesone ! " said Mrs. Tibbs, as she 
and her spouse were sitting by the fire 
after breakfast ; the gentlemen having 
gone out on their several avocations. 
" Charming woman, indeed ! " repeated 
little Mrs. Tibbs, more by way of soli- 
loquy than anything else, for she never 
thought of consulting her husband. 
" And the two daughters are delight- 
ful. We must have some fish to-day ; 
they'll join us at dinner for the first 
time." 

Mr. Tibbs placed the poker at right 
angles with the fire shovel, and essayed 
to speak, but recollected he had nothing 
to say. 

" The young ladies," continued 
Mrs. T., " have kindly volunteered co 
bring their own piano." 

Tibbs thought of the volunteer 
story, but did not venture it. A bright 
thought struck him — 

" It f s very likely — " said he. 

" Pray don't lean your head against 
the paper," interrupted Mrs. Tibbs ; 
" and don't put your feet on the steel 
fender ; that 's worse." 

Tibbs took his head from the paper, 
and his feet from the fender, and pro- 
ceeded. " It 's very likely one of the 
young ladies may set her cap at young 



Mr. Simpson, and you know a mar- 
riage " ■ 

" A what ! " shrieked Mrs. Tibbs. 
Tibbs modestly repeated his former 
suggestion. 

" I beg you won't mention such a 
thing," said Mrs. T. A marriage, 
indeed ! — to rob me of my boarders 
— no, not for the world." 

Tibbs thought in his own mind that 
the event was by no means unlikely, 
but, as he never argued with his wife, 
he put a stop to the dialogue, by 
observing it was " time to go to busi- 
ness." He always went out at ten 
o'clock in the morning, and returned 
at five in the afternoon, with an ex- 
ceedingly dirty face, and smelling 
mouldy. Nobody knew what he was, 
or where he went ; but Mrs. Tibbs 
used to say with an air of great im- 
portance, that he was engaged in the 
City. 

The Miss Maplesones and their 
accomplished parent arrived in the 
course of the afternoon in a hackney- 
coach, and accompanied by a most 
astonishing number of packages. 
Trunks, bonnet-boxes, muff-boxes and 
parasols, guitar-cases, and parcels of all 
imaginable shapes, done up in brown 
paper, and fastened with pins, filled 
the passage. Then, there was such a 
running up and down with the lug- 
gage, such scampering for warm water 
for the ladies to wash in, and such a 
bustle, and confusion, and heating of 
servants, and curling-irons, as had 
never been known in Great Coram- 
street before. Little Mrs. Tibbs was 
quite in her element, bustling about, 
talking incessantly, and distributing 
towels and soap, like a head nurse in 
a hospital. The house was not re- 
stored to its usual state of quiet 
repose, until the ladies were safely 
shut up in their respective bedrooms, 
engaged in the important occupation 
of dressing for dinner. 

"Are these gals 'andsome ?" inquired 
Mr. Simpson of Mr. Septimus Hicks, 
another of the boarders, as they were 
amusing themselves in the drawing- 
room, before dinner, by lolling on sofas, 
and contemplating their pumps. 



172 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



" Don 't know," replied Mr. Septi- 
mus Hicks, who was a tallish, white- 
faced young man, with spectacles, and 
a black ribbon round his neck instead 
of a neckerchief — a most interesting 
person; a poetical walker of the hospi- 
tals, and a " very talented young man." 
He was fond of " lugging " into conver- 
sation, all sorts of quotations from Don 
Juau, without fettering himself by the 
propriety of their application ; in which 
particular he was remarkably inde- 
pendent. The other, Mr. Simpson, 
was one of those young men, who are 
in society what walking gentlemen 
are on the stage, only infinitely worse 
skilled in his vocation than the most 
indifferent artist. He was as empty- 
headed as the great bell of St. Paul's ; 
always dressed according to the carica- 
tures published in the monthly fashions; 
and spelt Character with a K. 

" I saw a devilish number of parcels 
in the passage when I came home," 
simpered Mr. Simpson. 

" Materials for the toilet, no doubt," 
rejoined the Don Juan reader. 

Much linen, lace, and several pair 



Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, com- 
plete ; 
"With other articles of ladies' fair, 
To keep them beautiful, or leave them neat." 

" Is that from Milton ?" inquired 
Mr. Simpson. 

"No — from Byron," returned Mr. 
Hicks, with a look of contempt. He 
was quite sure of his author, because 
he had never read any other. " Hush ! 
Here come the gals," and they both 
commenced talking in a very loud key. 

" Mrs. Maplesone and the Miss 
Maplesones, Mr. Hicks. Mr. Hicks — 
Mrs. Maplesone and the Miss Maple- 
sones," said Mrs. Tibbs, with a very 
red face, for she had been superintend- 
ing the cooking operations below stairs, 
and looked like a wax doll on a sunny 
day. " Mr. Simpson, I beg your pardon 
— Mr. Simpson — Mrs. Maplesone and 
the Miss Maplesones" — and vice versa. 
The gentlemen immediately began to 
slide about with much politeness, and 
to look as if they wished their arms 
had been legs, so little did they know 
what to do with them. The ladies 



smiled, curtsied, and glided into chairs, 
and dived for dropped pocket-handker- 
chiefs : the gentlemen leant against 
two of the curtain-pegs ; Mrs. Tibbs 
went through an admirable bit of 
serious pantomime with a servant who 
had come up to ask some question 
about the fish-sauce ; and then the two 
young ladies looked at each other ; 
and everybody else appeared to dis- 
cover something very attractive in the 
pattern of the fender. 

" Julia my love," said Mrs. Maple- 
sone to her youngest daughter, in a 
tone loud enough for the remainder 
of the company to hear, — " Julia." 

« Yes, Ma." 

" Don 't stoop." — This was said for 
the purpose of directing general atten- 
tion to Miss Julia's figure, which was 
undeniable. Every body looked at her, 
accordingly, and there was another 
pause. 

" We had the most uncivil hackney- 
coachman to-day, you can imagine," 
said Mrs. Maplesone to Mrs. Tibbs, in 
a confidential tone. 

" Dear me !" replied the hostess, 
with an air of great commiseration. 
She couldn't say more, for the servant 
again appeared at the door, and com- 
menced telegraphing most earnestly to 
her " Missis." 

" I think hackney-coachmen gene- 
rally are uncivil," said Mr. Hicks in 
his most insinuating tone. 

" Positively I think they are," re- 
plied Mrs. Maplesone, as if the idea 
had never struck her before. 

" And cabmen, too," said Mr. Simp- 
son. This remark was a failure, for 
no one intimated, by word or sign, the 
slightest knowledge of the manners 
and customs of cabmen. 

" Robinson, what do you want ?" 
said Mrs. Tibbs to the servant who, by 
way of making her presence known to 
her mistress, had been giving sundry 
hems and sniffs outside the door dur- 
ing the preceding five minutes. 

"Please, ma'am, master wants his 
clean things," replied the servant, 
taken off her guard. The two young 
men turned their faces to the window, 
and " went off" like a couple of bottles 



THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 



173 



of ginger beer ; the ladies put their 
handkerchiefs to their mouths ; and 
little Mrs. Tibbs bustled out of the 
room to give Tibbs his clean linen, — 
and the servant warning. 

Mr. Calton. the remaining boarder, 
shortly afterwards made his appear- 
ance, and proved a surprising pro- 
moter of the conversation. Mr. Calton 
was a superannuated beau — an old 
boy. He used to say of himself that 
although his features were not regu- 
larly handsome, they were striking. 
They certainly were. It was impos- 
sible to look at his face without being 
reminded of a chubby street-door 
knocker, half-lion half-monkey; and 
the comparison might be extended 
to his whole character and conver- 
sation. He had stood still, while 
everything else had been moving. 
He never originated a conversation, 
or started an idea ; but if any com- 
monplace topic were broached, or, 
to pursue the comparison, if anybody 
lifted him up, he would hammer away 
with surprising rapidity. He had the 
tic-doloreux occasionally, and then he 
might be said to be muffled, because 
he did not make quite as much noise 
as at other times, when he would go 
on prosing, rat-tat-tat the same thing 
over and over again. He had never 
been married ; but he was still on the 
look-out for a wife with money. He 
had a life interest worth about 300?. a 
year — he was exceedingly vain, and 
inordinately selfish. He had acquired 
the reputation of being the very pink 
of politeness, and he walked round the 
park, and up Regent-street, every 
day. 

This respectable personage had made 
up his mind to render himself exceed- 
ingly agreeable to Mrs. Maplesone — 
indeed, the desire of being as amiable 
as possible extended itself to the whole 
party ; Mrs. Tibbs having considered 
it an admirable little bit of manage- 
ment to represent to the gentlemen 
that she had some reason to believe 
the ladies were fortunes, and to hint 
to the ladies, that all the gentlemen 
were "eligible." A little flirtation, 
she thought, might keep her house 



full, without leading to any other 
result. 

Mrs. Maplesone was an enterprising 
widow of about fifty: shrewd, scheming, 
and good-looking. She was amiably 
anxious on behalf of her daughters ; 
in proof whereof she used to remark, 
that she would have no objection to 
marry again, if it would benefit her 
dear girls — she could have no other 
motive. The " dear girls " themselves 
were not at all insensible to the merits* 
of "a good establishment." One of 
them was twenty-five ; the other, three 
years younger. They had been at diffe- 
rent watering-places, for four seasons ; 
they had gambled at libraries, read 
books in balconies, sold at fancy fairs, 
danced at assemblies, talked sentiment 
— in short, they had done all that in- 
dustrious girls could do — but, as yet, 
to no purpose. 

" What a magnificent dresser Mr. 
Simpson is !" whispered Matilda Ma- 
plesone to her sister Julia. 

" Splendid !" returned the youngest. 
The magnificent individual alluded to 
wore a maroon-coloured dress-coat, 
with a velvet collar and cuffs of 
the same tint — very like that which 
usually invests the form of the dis- 
tinguished unknown who condescends 
to play the " swell " in the pantomime 
at " Richardson's Show." 

" What whiskers !" said Miss Julia. 

" Charming !" responded her sister ; 
" and what hair !" His hair was like 
a wig, and distinguished by that in- 
sinuating wave which graces the shin- 
ing locks of those clief-d'ceuvres of 
art surmounting the waxen images in 
Bartellot's window, in Regent-street ; 
his whiskers meeting beneath his chin, 
seemed strings wherewith to tie it 
on, ere science had rendered them 
unnecessary by her patent invisible 
springs. 

" Dinner 's on the table, ma'am, if 
you please," said the boy, who now 
appeared for the first time, in a re- 
vived black coat of his master's. 

" Oh ! Mr. Calton, will you lead 
Mrs. Maplesone ?— Thank you." Mr. 
Simpson offered his arm to Miss Julia; 
Mr. Septimus Hicks escorted the lovely 



174 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



Matilda; and the procession proceeded 
to the dining-room. Mr. Tibbs was 
introduced, and Mr. Tibbs bobbed up 
and down to the three ladies like a 
figure in a Dutch clock, with a power- 
ful spring in the middle of his body, 
and then dived rapidly into his seat at 
the bottom of the table, delighted to 
screen himself behind a soup-tureen, 
•which he could just see over, and that 
•was all. The boarders were seated, a 
lady and gentleman alternately, like 
the layers of bread and meat in a plate 
of sandwiches ; and then Mrs. Tibbs 
directed James to take off the covers. 
Salmon, lobster-sauce, giblet-soup, and 
the usual accompaniments were dis- 
covered : potatoes like petrifactions, 
and bits of toasted bread, the shape 
and size of blank dice. 

" Soup for Mrs. Maplesone, iny dear," 
said the bustling Mrs. Tibbs. She 
always called her husband "my dear " 
before company. Tibbs who had been 
eating his bread, and calculating how 
long it would be before he should get 
any fish, helped the soup in a hurry, 
made a small island on the tablecloth, 
and put his glass upon it, to hide it 
from his wife. 

" Miss Julia, shall I assist you to 
some fish V 

a If you please — very little — oh ! 
plenty, thank you" (a bit about the 
size of a walnut put upon the plate). 

" Julia is a very little eater," said 
Mrs. Maplesone to Mr. Calton. 

The knocker gave a single rap. He 
was busy eating the fish with his eyes: 
so he only ejaculated, "Ah !" 

" My dear," said Mrs. Tibbs to her 
spouse after every one else had been 
helped, "What do you take?" The 
inquiry was accompanied with a look 
intimating that he mustn 't say fish, 
because there was not much left. 
Tibbs thought the frown referred to 
the island on the tablecloth ; he there- 
fore coolly replied, "Why — I'll take 
a little— fish, I think." 

" Did you say fish, my dear % " 
(another frown.) 

" Yes, dear," replied the villain, 
with an expression of acute hunger 
depicted in his countenance. The 



tears almost started to Mrs. Tibbs' 
eyes, as she helped her " wretch of a 
husband," as she inwardly called him, 
to the last eatable bit of salmon on 
the dish. 

"James, take this to your master, 
and take away your master's knife." 
This was deliberate revenge, as Tibbs 
never could eat fish without one. He 
was, however, constrained to chase 
small particles of salmon round and 
round his plate with a piece of bread 
and a fork, the number of successful 
attempts being about one in seven- 
teen. 

" Take away, James," said Mrs. 
Tibbs, as Tibbs swallowed the fourth 
mouthful — and away went the plates 
like lightning. 

" I '11 take a bit of bread, James," 
said the poor " master of the house," 
more hungry than ever. 

" Never mind your master now, 
James," said Mrs. Tibbs, " see about 
the meat." This was conveyed in the 
tone in which ladies usually give ad- 
monitions to servants in company, that 
is to say, a low one ; but which, like a 
stage whisper, from its peculiar em- 
phasis, is most distinctly heard by 
everybody present. 

A pause ensued, before the table was 
replenished — -a sort of parenthesis in 
which Mr. Simpson, Mr. Calton, and 
Mr. Hicks, produced respectively a 
bottle of sauterne,bucellas, and sherry, 
and took wine with everybody — except 
Tibbs. No one ever thought of him. 

Between the fish and an intimated 
sirloin, there was a prolonged interval. 

Here was an opportunity for Mr. 
Hicks. He could not resist the singu- 
larly appropriate quotation — 

" But beef is rare within these oxless isles ; 

Goats' flesh there is, no doubt, and Md, and 
mutton, 

And, when a holiday upon them smiles, 

A jointiupon their barbarous spits they put 
on." 

"Very ungentlemanly behaviour," 
thought little Mrs. Tibbs "to talk in 
that way." 

" Ah," said Mr. Calton, filling his 
glass. " Tom Moore is my poet." 

" And mine," said Mrs. Maplesone. 



THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 



175 



" And mine," said Miss Julia. 

" And mine," added Mr. Simpson. 

" Look at his compositions," resumed 
the knocker. 

"To be sure," said Simpson, with 
confidence. 

" Look at Don Juan," replied Mr. 
Septimus Hicks. 

" Julia's letter," suggested Miss 
Matilda. 

" Can anything be grander than the 
Fire Worshippers I " inquired Miss 
Julia. 

" To be sure," said Simpson. 

" Or Paradise and the Peri," said 
the old beau. 

" Yes ; or Paradise and the Peer," 
repeated Simpson, who thought he was 
getting through it capitally. 

" It 's all very well," replied Mr. 
Septimus Hicks, who, as we have before 
hinted, never had read anything but 
Don Juan. " Where will you find any- 
thing finer than the description of the 
siege, at the commencement of the 
seventh canto ? " 

" Talking of a siege," said Tibbs, 
with a mouthful of bread — " when I 
was in the volunteer corps, in eighteen 
hundred and six, our commanding 
officer was Sir Charles Rampart ; and 
one day, when we were exercising on 
the ground on which the London Uni- 
versity now stands, he says, says he, 
Tibbs (calling me from the ranks) 
Tibbs—" 

" Tell your master, James," inter- 
rupted Mrs. Tibbs, in an awfully dis- 
tinct tone, "tell your master if he 
won't carve those fowls, to send them 
to me." The discomfited volunteer 
instantly set to work, and carved the 
fowls almost as expeditiously as his 
wife operated On the haunch of mutton. 
Whether he ever finished the story is 
not known ; but, if he v did, nobody 
heard it. 

As the ice was now broken, and the 
new inmates more at home, every 
member of the company felt more at 
ease. Tibbs himself most certainly 
did, because he went to sleep imme- 
diately after dinner. Mr. Hicks and 
the ladies discoursed most eloquently 
about poetry, and the theatres, and 



Lord Chesterfield's Letters ; and Mr. 
Calton followed up what "everybody 
said, Avith continuous double knocks. 
Mrs. Tibbs highly approved of every 
observation that fell from Mrs. Maple- 
sone ; and as Mr. Simpson sat with a 
smile upon his face and said " Yes," or 
" Certainly," at intervals of about four 
minutes each, he received full credit 
for understanding what was going for- 
ward. The gentlemen rejoined the 
ladies in the drawing-rooin very shortly* 
after they had left the dining-parlour. 
Mrs. Maplesone and Mr. Calton played 
cribbage, and the " young people " 
amused themselves with music and 
conversation. The Miss Maplesones 
sang the most fascinating duets, and 
accompanied themselves on guitars, 
ornamented with bits of ethereal blue 
ribbon. Mr. Simpson put on a pink 
waistcoat, and said he was in raptures ; 
and Mr. Hicks felt in the seventh 
heaven of poetry, or the seventh canto 
of Don Juan — it was the same thing 
to him. Mrs. Tibbs was quite charmed 
with the new comers; and Mr. Tibbs 
spent the evening in his usual way — 
he went to sleep, and woke up, and 
went to sleep again, and woke at supper- 
time. 

****** 

We are not about to adopt the license 
of novel-writers, and to let " years roll 
on ;" but we will take the liberty of 
requesting the reader to suppose that 
six months have elapsed, since the 
dinner we have described, and that 
Mrs. Tibbs's boarders have, during that 
period, sang, and danced, and gone to 
theatres and exhibitions, together, as 
ladies and gentlemen, wherever they 
board, often do. And we will beg them, 
the period we have mentioned having 
elapsed, to imagine farther, that Mr. 
Septimus Hicks received, in his own 
bedroom (a front attic), at an early 
hour one morning, a note from Mr. 
Calton, requesting the favour of seeing 
him, as soon as convenient to himself, 
in his (Calton"s) dressing-room on the 
second floor back. 

" Tell Mr. Calton I '11 come down 
directly," said Mr. Septimus to the 
boy. " Stop— is Mr. Calton unwell ? " 



176 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



inquired this excited walker of hospi- 
tals, as he put on a bed-furniture- 
looking dressing-gown. 

" Not as I knows on, sir," replied the 
boy. "Please, sir, he looked rather 
rum, as it might be." 

" Ah, that 's no proof of his being 
ill," returned Hicks, unconsciously. 
" Very well : 1 11 be down directly." 
Down stairs ran the boy with the 
message, and down went the excited 
Hicks himself, almost as soon as the 
message was delivered. " Tap, tap." 
" Come in." — Door opens, and disco- 
vers Mr. Calton sitting in an easy 
chair. Mutual shakes of the hand 
exchanged, and Mr. Septimus Hicks 
motioned to a seat. A short pause. 
Mr. Hicks coughed, and Mr. Calton 
took a pinch of snuff. It was one of 
those interviews where neither party 
knows what to say. Mr. Septimus 
Hicks broke silence. 

" I received a note — " he said, very 
tremulously, in a voice like a Punch 
with a cold. 

" Yes," returned the other, " you 
did." 

« Exactly." 

" Yes." 

Now, although this dialogue must 
have been satisfactory, both gentlemen 
felt there was something more import- 
ant to be said ; therefore they did as 
most men in such a situation would 
have done — they looked at the table 
with a determined aspect. The conver- 
sation had been opened, however, and 
Mr. Calton had made up his mind to 
continue it, with a regular double knock. 
He always spoke very pompously. 

" Hicks," said he, " I have sent for 
you, in consequence of certain arrange- 
ments which are pending in this house, 
connected with a marriage." 

" With a marriage ! " gasped Hicks, 
compared with whose expression of 
countenance, Hamlet's, when he sees 
his father's ghost, is pleasing and corn- 



inquired Hicks, who in his alarm had 
even forgotten to quote. 

" / betray you ! Won't you betray 
me ? " 

" Never : no one shall know, to my 
dying day, that you had a hand in the 
business, 1 ' responded the agitated Hicks, 
with an inflamed countenance, and his 
hair standing on end as if he were on 
the stool of an electrifying machine in 
full operation. 

K People must know that, some time 
or other — within a year, I imagine," 
said Mr. Calton, with an air of great 
self-complacency. " We may have a 
familv." 

" We f — That won't affect you, 
surely ? " 

" The devil it won't!" 

** No ! how can it ? " said the bewil- 
dered Hicks. Calton was too much 
inwrapped in the contemplation of his 
happiness to see the equivoque be- 
tween Hicks and himself ; and threw 
himself back in his chair. a Oh, Ma- 
tilda ! " sighed the antique beau, in a 
lack-a-daisical voice, and applying his 
right hand a little to the left of the 
fourth button of his waistcoat, counting 
from the bottom. " Oh, Matilda ! " 

" What Matilda \ " inquired Hicks, 



"With a marriage," returned the 
knocker. "I have sent for you to 
prove the great confidence I can repose 
in you." 

" And will you betray me % " eagerly 



I starting up. 

" Matilda Maplesone," responded 
| the other, doing the same. 

" I marry her to-morrow morning," 
i said Hicks. 

" It 's false," rejoined his companion: 
" I marry her ! " 

" You marry her ! " 

" I marry her ! " 

" You marry Matilda Maplesone \ " 

" Matilda Maplesone." 

"Miss Maplesone marry you?" 

" Miss Maplesone ! No : Mrs. 
Maplesone." 

" Good Heaven! " said Hicks, falling 
into his chair: " You marry the 
mother, and I the daughter ! " 

" Most extraordinary circumstance !" 
replied Mr. Calton, " and rather incon- 
venient too ; for the fact is, that 
owing to Matilda's wishing to keep her 
intention secret from her daughters 
until the ceremony had taken place, 
she doesn't like applying to any of her 



THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 



177 



friends to give her away. I entertain 
an objection to making the affair 
known to my acquaintance just now; 
and the consequence is, that I sent to 
you, to know whether you'd oblige me 
by acting as father." 

" I should have been most happy, I 
assure you," said Hicks, in a tone of 
condolence; " but, you see, I shall be 
acting as bridegroom. One character 
is frequently a consequence of the 
other; but it is not usual to act in 
both at the same time. There 's 
Simpson — I have no doubt he '11 do it 
for you. 1 ' 

" I don't like to ask him," replied 
Calton ; " he 's such a donkey." 

Mr. Septimus Hicks looked up at 
the ceiling, and down at the floor; at 
last an idea struck him. " Let the man 
of the house, Tibbs, be the father," he 
suggested ; and then he quoted, as 
peculiarly applicable to Tibbs and the 
pair — 

" Oh Powers of Heaven! what dark eyes meets 
she there ? 

*Tis — 'tis her father's— fixed upon the pair." 

" The idea has struck me already," 
said Mr. Calton: "but, you see, 
Matilda, for what reason I know not, 
is very anxious that Mrs. Tibbs should 
know nothing about it, till it 's all over. 
It 's a natural delicacy, after all, you 
know." 

"He's the best-natured little man 
in existence, if you manage him pro- 
perly," said Mr. Septimus Hicks. 
" Tell him not to mention it to his 
wife, and assure him she won't mind 
it, and he '11 do it directly. My mar- 
riage is to be a secret one, on account 
of the mother and my father : there- 
fore he must be enjoined to secrecy." 

A small double knock, like a pre- 
sumptuous single one, was that instant 
heard at the street-door. It was 
Tibbs ; it could be no one else ; for no 
one else occupied five minutes in rub- 
bing his shoes. He had been out to pay 
the baker's bill. 

" Mr. Tibbs," called Mr. Calton in 
a very bland tone, looking over the 
banisters. 

" Sir ! " replied he of the dirty 
face. 

No. 134. 



" Will you have the kindness to step 
up stairs for a moment ? " 

"Certainly, sir," said Tibbs, de- 
lighted to be taken notice of. The 
bedroom-door was carefully closed, and 
Tibbs, having put his hat on the floor 
(as most timid men do,) and been 
accommodated with a seat, looked as 
astounded as if he were suddenly sum- 
moned before the familiars of the 
Inquisition. 

"A rather unpleasant occurrence, 
Mr. Tibbs," said Calton, in a very 
portentous manner, " obliges me to 
consult you, and to beg you will not 
communicate what I am about to say, to 
your wife." 

Tibbs acquiesced, wondering in his 
own mind what the deuce the other 
could have done, and imagining that at 
least he must have broken the best 
decanters. 

Mr. Calton resumed; "I am placed, 
Mr. Tibbs, in rather an unpleasant 
situation." 

Tibbs looked at Mr. Septimus Hicks, 
as if he thought Mr. H. ? s being in the 
immediate vicinity of his fellow-boarder 
might constitute the unpleasantness of 
his situation ; but as he did not 
exactly know what to say, he merely 
ejaculated the monosyllable " Lor ! " 

"Now," continued the knocker, 
" let me beg you will exhibit no mani- 
festations of surprise, which may be 
overheard by the domestics, when I. 
tell you — command your feelings of 
astonishment — that two inmates of 
this house intend to be married to- 
morrow morning." And he drew 
back his chair, several feet, to perceive 
the effect of the unlooKeu-for an- 
nouncement. 

If Tibbs had rushed from the room, 

staggered down stairs, and fainted in 

the passage — if he had instantaneously 

jumped out of the window into the 

| mews behind the house, in an agony of 

' surprise — his behaviour would have 

been much less inexplicable to Mr. 

Calton than it was, when he put his 

hands into his inexpressible-pockets, 

and said with a half-chuckle, "Just so." 

" You are not surprised, Mr. 

Tibbs !" inquired Mr. Calton. 

12 



178 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



f Bless you, no, sir," returned Tibbs; 
" after all, it 's very natural. When 
two young people get together, you 

know " 

"Certainly, certainly," said Calton, 
with an indescribable air of self- 
satisfaction. 

" You don't think it 's at all an out- 
of-the-way affair then ? " asked Mr. 
Septimus Hicks, who had watched the 
countenance of Tibbs in mute asto- 
nishment. 

" No, sir," replied Tibbs ; " I was 
just the same at his age.'' He actually 
smiled when he said this. 

" How devilish well I must carry 
my years ! " thought the delighted 
old beau, knowing he was at least 
ten years older than Tibbs at that 
moment. 

" Well, then, to come to the point 
at once," he continued, " I have to ask 
you whether you will object to act as 
father on the occasion ? " 

" Certainly not," replied Tibbs ; 
still without evincing an atom of 
surprise. 

" You will not ? " 

« Decidedly not," reiterated Tibbs, 
still as calm as a pot of porter with 
the head off. 

Mr. Calton seized the hand of the 
petticoat-governed little man, and 
vowed eternal friendship from that 
hour. Hicks, who was all admiration 
and surprise, did the same. 

"Now confess," asked Mr. Calton 
of Tibbs, as he picked up his 
hat, "were you not a little sur- 
prised ? " 

" I b'lieve you ! " replied that illus- 
trious person, holding up one hand ; 
" I b'lieve you ! When I first heard 
of it." 

" So sudden," said Septimus Hicks. 

" So strange to ask me, you know," 
said Tibbs. 

" So odd altogether ! " said the super- 
annuated love-maker ; and then all 
three laughed. 

"I say," said Tibbs, shutting the 
door which he had previously opened, 
and giving full vent to a hitherto 
corked-up giggle, "what bothers me 
is, what will his father say ? " 



Mr. Septimus Hicks looked at Mr. 
Calton. 

" Yes ; but the best of it is," said 
the latter, giggling in his turn, "I 
haven't got a father — he ! he ! he ! " 

" You haven't got a father. No ; 
but lie has," said Tibbs. 

" Who has % " inquired Septimus 
Hicks. 

" Why him." 

" Him, who ? Do you know my 
secret ? Do you mean me ?" 

" You ! No ; you know who I 
mean," returned Tibbs with a knowing 
wink. 

" For Heaven's sake whom do you 
mean ? " inquired Mr. Calton, who, 
like Septimus Hicks, was all but out 
of his senses at the strange confusion. 

" Why Mr. Simpson, of course," 
replied Tibbs ; who else could I 
mean ? " 

" I see it all," said the Byron-quoter ; 
" Simpson marries Julia Maplesone 
to-morrow morning ! " 

" Undoubtedly," replied Tibbs, 
thoroughly satisfied, " of course he 
does." 

It would require the pencil of 
Hogarth to illustrate — our feeble pen 
is inadequate to describe — the expres- 
sion which the countenances of Mr. 
Calton and Mr. Septimus Hicks re- 
spectively assumed, at this unexpected 
announcement. Equally impossible is 
it to describe, although perhaps it is 
easier for our lady readers to imagine, 
what arts the three ladies could have 
used, so completely to entangle their 
separate partners. Whatever they 
were, however, they were successful. 
The mother was perfectly aware of the 
intended marriage of both daughters; 
and the young ladies were equally 
acquainted Avith the intention of their 
estimable parent. They agreed, how- 
ever, that it would have a much better 
appearance if each feigned ignorance 
of the other's engagement; and it was 
equally desirable that all the marriages 
should take place on the same day, to 
prevent the discovery of one clandes- 
tine alliance, operating prejudicially 
on the others. Hence, the mystifica- 
tion of Mr. Calton and Mr. Septimus 






THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 



179 



Hicks, and the pre-engagement of the 
unwary Tibbs. 

On the following morning, Mr. Sep- 
timus Hicks was united to Miss 
Matilda Maplesone. Mr. Simpson 
also entered into a " holy alliance" with 
Miss Julia: Tibbs acting as father, 
** his first appearance in that charac- 
ter." Mr. Calton, not being quite so 
eager as the two young men, was 
rather struck by the double discovery; 
and as he had found some difficulty in 
getting any one to give the lady away, 
it occurred to him that the best mode of 
obviating the inconvenience would be 
not to take her at all. The lady, how- 
ever, " appealed," as her counsel said 
on the trial of the cause, Maplesone v. 
Calton, for a breach of promise, "with 
a broken heart, to the outraged laws 
of her country." She recovered da- 
mages to the amount of 1,000?. which 
the unfortunate knocker was com- 
pelled to pay. Mr. Septimus Hicks 
having walked the hospitals, took it 
into his head to walk off altogether. 
His injured wife is at present residing 
with her mother at Boulogne. Mr. 
Simpson, having the misfortune to lose 
his wife six weeks after marriage (by 
her eloping with an officer during his 
temporary sojourn in the Fleet 
Prison, in consequence of his inability 
to discharge her little mantua-maker's 
bill), and being disinherited by his 
father, who died soon afterwards, was 
fortunate enough to obtain a perma- 
nent engagement at a fashionable hair- 
cutter's; hairdressing being a science 



to which he had frequently directed 
his attention. In this situation he 
had necessarily many opportunities of 
making himself acquainted with the 
habits, and style of thinking, of the 
exclusive portion of the nobility of 
this kingdom. To this fortunate cir- 
cumstance are we indebted for the 
production of those brilliant efforts of 
genius, his fashionable novels, which 
so long as good taste, unsullied by ex- 
aggeration, cant, and quackery, con- 
tinues to exist, cannot fail to instruct 
and amuse the thinking portion of the 
community. 

It only remains to add, that this 
complication of disorders completely 
deprived poor Mrs. Tibbs of all her 
inmates, except the one whom she could 
have best spared — her husband. That 
wretched little man returned home, on 
the day of the wedding, in a state of 
partial intoxication ; and, under the 
influence of wine, excitement, and 
despair, actually dared to brave the 
anger of his wife. Since that ill-fated 
hour he has constantly taken his 
meals in the kitchen, to which apart- 
ment, it is understood, his witticisms 
will be in future confined : a turn-up 
bedstead having been conveyed there 
by Mrs. Tibb's order for his exclusive 
accommodation. It is possible that 
he will be enabled to finish, in that 
seclusion, his story of the volunteers. 

The advertisement has again ap- 
peared in the morning papers. Results 
must be reserved for another chapter. 



CHAPTER THE SECOND. 



" Well ! " said little Mrs. Tibbs to 
herself, as she sat in the front parlour 
of the Coram-street mansion one morn- 
ing, mending a piece of stair-carpet 
off the first landing ; — " Things have 
not turned out so badly, either, and 
if I only get a favourable answer 



to the advertisement, we shall be full 
again." 

Mrs. Tibbs resumed her occupation 
of making worsted lattice-work in the 
carpet, anxiously listening to the two- 
penny postman, who was hammering 
his way down the street, at the rate of 
n2 



180 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



a penny a knock. The house was as 
quiet as possible. There was only 
one low sound to be heard — it was the 
unhappy Tibbs cleaning the gentle- 
men's boots in the back kitchen, and 
accompanying himself with a buzzing 
noise, in wretched mockery of hum- 
ming a tune. 

The postman drew near the house. 
He paused — so did Mrs. Tibbs. A 
knock — a bustle — a letter — post-paid. 

" T. I. presents compt. to I. T. and 
T. I. begs To say that i see the adver- 
tisement And she will Do Herself the 
pleasure of calling On you at 12 o'clock 
to-morrow morning. 

" T. I. as To apologise to I. T. for 
the shortness Of the notice But i hope 
it will not unconvenience you. 
" I remain yours Truly 

" Wednesday evening." 

Little Mrs. Tibbs perused the docu- 
ment, over and over again ; and the 
more she read it, the more was she 
confused by the mixture of the first 
and third person ; the substitution of 
the « I " for the « T. I ; " and the tran- 
sition from the "I. T." to the "you." 
The writing looked like a skein of 
thread in a tangle, and the note was 
ingeniously folded into a perfect 
square, with the direction squeezed 
up into the right-hand corner, as if it 
were ashamed of itself. The back of 
the epistle was pleasingly ornamented 
with a large red wafer, which, with 
the addition of divers ink-stains, bore 
a marvellous resemblance to a black 
beetle trodden upon. One thing, how- 
ever, was perfectly clear to the per- 
plexed Mrs. Tibbs. Somebody was 
to call at twelve. The drawing-room 
was forthwith dusted for the third 
time that morning ; three or four 
chairs were pulled out of their places, 
and a corresponding number of books 
carefully upset, in order that there 
might be a due absence of formality. 
Down went the piece of stair-carpet 
before noticed, and up ran Mrs. Tibbs 
" to make herself tidy." 

The clock of New Saint Pancras 
Church struck twelve, and the Found- 
ling, with laudable politeness, did the 
same ten minutes afterwards. Saint 



something else struck the quarter, and 
then there arrived a single lady with 
a double knock, in a pelisse the colour 
of the interior of a damson pie ; a 
bonnet of the same, with a regular 
conservatory of artificial flowers ; a 
white veil, and a green parasol, with 
a cobweb border. 

The visitor (who was very fat and 
red-faced) was shown into the draw- 
ing-room ; Mrs. Tibbs presented her- 
self, and the negotiation commenced. 
" I called in consequence of an 
advertisement," said the stranger, in 
a voice as if she had been playing a 
set of Pan's pipes for a fortnight 
without leaving off. 

" Yes ! " said Mrs. Tibbs, rubbing 
her hands very slowly, and looking 
the applicant full in the face — two 
things she always did on such 
occasions. 

" Money isn't no object whatever to 
me," said the lady, " so much as living 
in a state of retirement and obtrusion." 
Mrs. Tibbs, as a matter of course, 
acquiesced in such an exceedingly 
natural desire. 

"I am constantly attended by a 
medical man," resumed the pelisse 
wearer ; " I have been a shocking uni- 
tarian for some time — I, indeed, have 
had very little peace since the death 
of Mr. Bloss." 

Mrs. Tibbs looked at the relict of 
the departed Bloss, and thought he 
must have had very little peace in his 
time. Of course she could not say so; 
so she looked very sympathising. 

" I shall be a good deal of trouble 
to you," said Mrs. Bloss ; " but, for 
that trouble I am willing to pay. I 
am going through a course of treat- 
ment which renders attention neces- 
sary. I have one mutton chop in bed 
at half-past eight, and another at ten, 
every morning." 

Mrs. Tibbs, as in duty bound, 
expressed the pity she felt for any 
body placed in such a distressing situa- 
tion ; and the carnivorous Mrs. Bloss 
proceeded to arrange the various pre- 
liminaries with wonderful despatch. 
" Now mind," said that lady, after 
terms were arranged : " I am to have 






THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 



181 



the second-floor front, for my bed- 
room ? " 

<e Yes, ma'am." 

" And you '11 find room for my little 
servant Agnes ? " 

" Oh ! certainly." 

" And I can have one of the cellars 
in the area for my bottled porter." 

'; With the greatest pleasure ; — 
James shall get it ready for you by 
Saturday." 

" And I '11 join the company at the 
breakfast-table on Sunday morning," 
said Mrs. Bloss. " 1 shall get up on 
purpose." 

" Very well," returned Mrs. Tibbs, 
in her most amiable tone ; for satis- 
factory references had " been given 
and required," and it was quite cer- 
tain that the new comer had plenty of 
money. " It 's rather singular," con- 
tinued Mrs. Tibbs, with what was 
meant for a most bewitching smile, 
" that we have a gentleman now with 
us, who is in a very delicate state of 
health — a Mr. Gobler. — His apart- 
ment is the back drawing-room." 

" The next room % " inquired Mrs. 
Bloss. 

" The next room," repeated the 
hostess. 

" How very promiscuous ! " ejacu- 
lated the widow. 

" He hardly ever gets up," said 
Mrs. Tibbs in a whisper. 

" Lor ! " cried Mrs. Bloss, in an 
equally low tone. 

" And when he is up," said Mrs. 
Tibbs, " we never can persuade him 
to go to bed again." 

" Dear me!" said the astonished 
Mrs. Bloss, drawing her chair nearer 
Mrs. Tibbs. " What is his complaint ?" 

"Why, the fact is," replied Mrs. 
Tibbs, with a most communicative 
air, " he has no stomach whatever." 

" No what ? " inquired Mrs. Bloss, 
with a look of the most indescribable 
alarm. 

" No stomach," repeated Mrs. Tibbs, 
with a shake of the head. 

" Lord bless us ! what an extra- 
ordinary case ! " gasped Mrs. Bloss, 
as if she understood the communica- 
tion in its literal sense, and was asto- 



nished at a gentleman without a 
stomach finding it necessary to board 
anywhere. 

" When I say he has no stomach," 
explained the chatty little Mrs. Tibbs, 
" I mean that his digestion is so much 
impaired, and his interior so deranged, 
that his stomach is not of the least 
use to him ; — in fact, it 's an incon- 
venience." 

" Never heard such a case in my , 
life ! " exclaimed Mrs. Bloss. " Why, 
he 's worse than I am." 

" Oh, yes ! " replied Mrs. Tibbs ;— 
" certainly." She said this with great 
confidence, for the damson pelisse sug- 
gested that Mrs. Bloss, at all events, 
was not suffering under Mr. Gobler's 
complaint. 

" You have quite incited my curio- 
sity," said Mrs. Bloss, as she rose to 
depart. " How I long to see him ! " 

" He generally comes down, once a 
week," replied Mrs. Tibbs ; " I dare 
say you '11 see him on Sunday." With 
this consolatory promise Mrs. Bloss 
was obliged to be contented. She 
accordingly walked slowly down the 
stairs, detailing her complaints all the 
way ; and Mrs. Tibbs followed her, 
uttering an exclamation of compassion 
at every step. James (who looked 
very gritty, for he was cleaning the* 
knives) fell up the kitchen-stairs, ana 
opened the street-door ; and, after 
mutual farewells, Mrs. Bloss slowly 
departed, down the shady side of the 
street. 

It is almost superfluous to say, that 
the lady whom we have just shown 
out at the street-door (and whom the 
two female servants are now inspect- 
ing from the second-floor windows) 
was exceedingly vulgar, ignorant, and 
selfish. Her deceased better-half had 
been an eminent cork-cutter, in which 
capacity he had amassed a decent 
fortune. He had no relative but his 
nephew, and no friend but his cook. 
The former had the insolence one 
morning to ask for the loan of fifteen 
pounds ; and, by way of retaliation, he 
married the latter next day ; he made 
a will immediately afterwards, con- 
taining a burst of honest indignation 



,182 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



against his nephew (who supported 
himself and two sisters on 100?. a 
year), and a bequest of his whole pro- 
perty to his wife. He felt ill after 
breakfast, and died after dinner. 
There is a mantelpiece-looking tablet 
in a civic parish church, setting forth 
his virtues, and deploring his loss. 
He never dishonoured a bill, or gave 
away a halfpenny. 

The relict and sole executrix of this 
noble-minded man was an odd mixture 
of shrewdness and simplicity, liberality 
and meanness. Bred up as she had 
been, she knew no mode of living so 
agreeable as a boarding-house ; and 
having nothing to do, and nothing to 
wish for, she naturally imagined she 
must be very ill — an impression which 
was most assiduously promoted by her 
medical attendant, Dr. Wosky, and 
her handmaid Agnes : both of whom, 
doubtless for good reasons, encou- 
raged all her extravagant notions. 

Since the catastrophe recorded in 
the last chapter, Mrs. Tibbs had been 
very shy of young-lady boarders. 
Her present inmates were all lords of 
the creation, and she availed herself 
of the opportunity of their assemblage 
at the dinner-table, to announce the 
expected arrival of Mrs. Bloss. The 
gentlemen received the communica- 
tion with stoical indifference, and Mrs. 
Tibbs devoted all her energies to 
prepare for the reception of the vale- 
tudinarian. The second-floor front 
was scrubbed, and washed, and flan- 
nelled, till the wet went through to 
the drawing room ceiling. Clean 
white counterpanes, and curtains, and 
napkins, water-bottles as clear as 
crystal, blue jugs, and mahogany fur- 
niture, added to the splendour, and 
increased the comfort, of the apart- 
ment. The warming-pan was in con- 
stant requisition, and a fire lighted in 
the room every day. The chattels of 
Mrs. Bloss were forwarded by instal- 
ments. First, there came a large 
hamper of Guinness's stout, and an 
umbrella ; then, a train of trunks ; 
then, a pair of clogs and a bandbox ; 
then, an easy chair with an air-cushion ; 
then, a variety of suspicious-looking 



packages ; and — " though last not 
least " — Mrs. Bloss and Agnes : the 
latter in a cherry- coloured merino 
dress, open-work stockings, and shoes 
with sandals : like a disguised Colum- 
bine. 

The installation of the Duke of 
Wellington, as Chancellor of the Uni- 
versity of Oxford, was nothing, in 
point of bustle and turmoil, to the 
installation of Mrs. Bloss in her new 
quarters. True, there was no bright 
doctor of civil law to deliver a classi- 
cal address on the occasion ; but there 
were several other old women pre- 
sent, who spoke quite as much to the 
purpose, and understood themselves 
equally well. The chop-eater was so 
fatigued with the process of removal 
that she declined leaving her room 
until the following morning ; so a 
mutton-chop, pickle, a pill, a pint 
bottle of stout, and other medicines, 
were carried up stairs for her con- 
sumption. 

" Why, what do you think, ma'am?" 
inquired the inquisitive Agnes of her 
mistress, after they had been in the 
house some three hours ; " what do 
you think, ma'am ? the lady of the 
house is married." 

" Married ! " said Mrs. Bloss, taking 
the pill and a draught of Guinness — 
K married ! Unpossible ! " 

" She is indeed, ma'am," returned 
the Columbine ; " and her husband, 
ma'am, lives — he — he — he — lives in 
the kitchen, ma'am." 

■ In the kitchen ! " 

" Yes, ma'am : and he — he — he — 
the housemaid says, he never goes into 
the parlour except on Sundays; and 
that Mrs. Tibbs makes him clean the 
gentlemen's boots ; and that he cleans 
the windows, too, sometimes ; and 
that one morning early, when he was 
in the front balcony cleaning the 
drawing-room windows, he called out 
to a gentleman on the opposite side of 
the way, who used to live here — ' Ah ! 
Mr. Calton, sir, how are you ? ' " Here 
the attendant laughed till Mrs. Bloss 
was in serious apprehension of her 
chuckling herself into a fit. 

« Well, I never ! " said Mrs. Bloss. 



THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 



183 



" Yes. And please, ma'am, the ser- 
vants gives him gin-and-water some- 
times ; and then he cries, and says he 
hates his wife and the boarders, and 
wants to tickle them." 

" Tickle the boarders ! " exclaimed 
Mrs. Bloss, seriously alarmed. 

" No, ma'am, not the boarders, the 
servants." 

" Oh, is that all ! " said Mrs. Bloss, 
quite satisfied. 

" He wanted to kiss me as I came 
up the kitchen-stairs, just now," said 
Agnes, indignantly ; " but I gave it 
him — a little wretch ! " 

This intelligence was but too true. 
A long course of snubbing and neglect ; 
his days spent in the kitchen, and his 
nights in the turn-up bedstead, had 
completely broken the little spirit that 
the unfortunate volunteer had ever 
possessed. He had no one to whom 
he could detail his injuries but the 
servants, and they were almost of 
necessity his chosen confidants. It is 
no less strange than true, however, 
that the little weaknesses which he 
had incurred, most probably during 
his military career, seemed to increase 
as his comforts diminished. He was 
actually a sort of journeyman Giovanni 
of the basement story. 

The next morning, being Sunday, 
breakfast was laid in the front parlour 
at ten o'clock. Nine was the usual 
time, but the family always breakfasted 
an hour later on sabbath. Tibbs 
enrobed himself in his Sunday cos- 
tume—a black coat, and exceedingly 
short, thin trousers ; with a very large 
white waistcoat, white stockings and i 
cravat, and Blucher boots — and 
mounted to the parlour aforesaid. 
Nobody had come down, and he 
amused himself by drinking the con- 
tents of the milkpot with a teaspoon. 

A pair of slippers were heard de- 
scending the stairs. Tibbs flew to a 
chair; and a stern-looking man, of 
about fifty, with very little hair on his 
head, and a Sunday paper in his hand, 
entered the room. 

" Good morning, Mr. Evenson," 
said Tibbs, very humbly, with some- 
thing between a nod and bow. 



" How do you, Mr. Tibbs ? " replied 
he of the slippers, as he sat himself 
down, and began to read his paper 
without saying another word. 

" Is Mr. Wisbottle in town to-day, 
do you know, sir ? V inquired Tibbs, 
just for the sake of saying something. 

"I should think he was," replied 
the stern gentleman. " He was whist- 
ling * The Light Guitar,' in the next 
room to mine, at five o'clock this 
morning." 

" He 's very fond of whistling," 
said Tibbs, with a slight smirk. 

" Yes — I ain't," was the laconic 
reply. 

Mr. John Evenson was in the receipt 
of an independent income, arising 
chiefly from various houses he owned 
in the different suburbs. He was very 
morose and discontented. He was a 
thorough radical, and used to attend a 
great variety of public meetings, for 
the express purpose of finding fault 
with everything that was proposed. 
Mr. Wisbottle, on the other hand, 
was a high Tory. He was a clerk in 
the Woods and Forests Office, which 
he considered rather an aristocratic 
employment ; he knew the peerage by 
heart, and could tell you, off-hand, 
where any illustrious personage lived. 
He had a good set of teeth, and a 
capital tailor. Mr. Evenson looked 
on all these qualifications with pro- 
found contempt ; and the consequence 
was that the two were always disput- 
ing, much to the edification of the 
rest of the house. It should be added, 
that, in addition to his partiality for 
whistling, Mr. Wisbottle had a great 
idea of his singing powers. There 
were two other boarders, besides the 
gentleman in the back drawing-room 
— Mr. Alfred Tomkins and Mr. Fre- 
derick 'Bleary. Mr. Tomkins was 
a clerk in a wine-house ; he was 
a connoisseur in paintings, and had 
a wonderful eye for the picturesque. 
Mr. O' Bleary was an Irishman, 
recently imported ; he was in a per- 
fectly wild state ; and had come over 
to England to be an apothecary, 
a clerk in a government office, an 
actor, a reporter, or anything else 



184 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



that turned up — he was not particular. 
He was on familiar terms with two 
small Irish members, and got franks 
for every body in the house. He felt 
convinced that his intrinsic merits 
must procure him a high destiny. 
He wore shepherd's-plaid inexpres- 
sibles, and used to look under all the 
ladies' bonnets as he walked along the 
streets. His manners and appearance 
reminded one of Orson. 

" Here comes Mr. Wisbottle," said 
Tibbs ; and Mr. Wisbottle forthwith 
appeared in blue slippers, and a shawl 
dressing-gown, whistling " Di piacer." 

" Good morning, sir," said Tibbs 
again. It was almost the only thing he 
ever said to anybody. 

" How are you, Tibbs % " conde- 
scendingly replied the amateur ; and 
he walked to the window, and whistled 
louder than ever. 

" Pretty air, that ! " said Evenson, 
with a snarl, and without taking his 
eyes off the paper. 

" Glad you like it," replied Wis- 
bottle, highly gratified. 

" Don't you think it would sound 
better, if you whistled it a little 
louder ? " inquired the mastiff. 

"No ; I don't think it would," re- 
joined the unconscious Wisbottle. 

" I '11 tell you what, Wisbottle," said 
Evenson, who had been bottling up his 
anger for some hours — " the next time 
you feel disposed to whistle ' The Light 
Guitar ' at five o'clock in the morning, 
I '11 trouble you to whistle it with your 
head out o' window. If you don't, I '11 
learn the triangle — I will by — " 

The entrance of Mrs. Tibbs (with 
the keys in a little basket) interrupted 
the threat, and prevented its con- 
clusion. 

Mrs. Tibbs apologised for being down 
rather late ; the bell was rung ; James 
brought up the urn, and received an 
unlimited order for dry toast and 
bacon. Tibbs sat down at the bottom 
of the table, and began eating water- 
cresses like a Nebuchadnezzar. Mr. 
O'Bleary appeared, and Mr. Alfred 
Tomkins. The compliments of the 
morning were exchanged, and the tea 
was made. 



" God bless me ! " exclaimed Tom- 
kins, who had been looking out at the 
window. " Here — Wisbottle — pray 
come here — make haste." 

Mr. Wisbottle started from the table, 
and every one looked up. 

" Do you see," said the connoisseur, 
placing Wisbottle in the right position 
— " a little more this way : there — do 
you see how splendidly the light falls 
upon the left side of that broken chim- 
ney-pot at No. 48 ? " 

" Dear me ! I see," replied Wis- 
bottle, in a tone of admiration. 

"I never saw an object stand out so 
beautifully against the clear sky in my 
life," ejaculated Alfred, Everybody 
(except John Evenson) echoed the 
sentiment ; for Mr. Tomkins had a 
great character for finding out beauties 
which no one else could discover — he 
certainly deserved it. 

" I have frequently observed a chim- 
ney-pot in College-green, Dublin, which 
has a much better effect," said the pa- 
triotic O'Bleary, who never allowed 
Ireland to be outdone on any point. 

The assertion was received with 
obvious incredulity, for Mr. Tomkins 
declared that no other chimney-pot in 
the United Kingdom, broken or un- 
broken, could be so beautiful as the 
one at No. 48. 

The room-door was suddenly thrown 
open, and Agnes appeared leading in 
Mrs. Bloss, who was dressed in a gera- 
nium-coloured muslin gown, and dis- 
played a gold watch of huge dimensions; 
a chain to match ; and a splendid assort- 
ment of rings, with enormous stones. 
A general rush was made for a chair, 
and a regular introduction took place. 
Mr. John Evenson made a slight in- 
clination of the head ; Mr. Frederick 
O'Bleary, Mr. Alfred Tomkins, and 
Mr. Wisbottle, bowed like the manda- 
rins in a grocer's shop ; Tibbs rubbed 
hands, and went round in circles. He 
was observed to close one eye, and to 
assume a clock-work sort of expression 
with the other ; this has been consi- 
dered as a wink, and it has been re- 
ported that Agnes was its object. We 
repel the calumny, and challenge con- 
tradiction. 



THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 



185 



Mrs. Tibbs inquired after Mrs. 
Bloss's health in a low tone. Mrs. 
Bloss, with a supreme contempt for 
the memory of Lindley Murray, an- 
swered the various questions in a most 
satisfactory manner ; and a pause en- 
sued, during which the eatables disap- 
peared with awful rapidity. 

" You must have been very much 
pleased with the appearance of the 
ladies going to the drawing-room the 
other day, Mr. O'Bleary ? " said Mrs. 
Tibbs, hoping to start a topic. 

" Yes," replied Orson, with a mouth- 
ful of toast. 

" Never saw anything like it before, 
I suppose ? " suggested Wisbottle. 

" No — except the Lord Lieutenant's 
levees," replied O'Bleary. 

u Are they at all equal to our draw- 
ing-rooms 1 " 

" Oh, infinitely superior ! " 

" Gad ! I don't know," said the 
aristocratic Wisbottle, " the Dowager 
Marchioness of Publiccash was most 
magnificently dressed, and so was the 
Baron Slappenbachenhausen." 

" What was he presented on ? " in- 
quired Evenson. 

" On his arrival in England." 

" I thought so," growled the radical; 
'* you never hear of these fellows being 
presented on their going away again. 
They know better than that." 

" Unless somebody pervades them 
with an apintment," said Mrs. Bloss, 
joining in the conversation in a faint 
voice. 

" Well," said Wisbottle, evading the 
point, " it's a splendid sight." 

"And did it never occur to you." 
inquired the radical, who never would 
be quiet ; " did it never occur to you, 
that you pay for these precious orna- 
ments of society !" 

" It certainly has occurred to me," 
said Wisbottle, who thought this answer 
was a poser ; " it has occurred to me, 
and I am willing to pay for them." 

" Weil, and it has occurred to me 
too," replied John Evenson, " and I 
ain't willing to pay for 'em. Then why 
should I ? — I say, why should I ? " 
continued the politician, laying down 
the paper, and knocking his knuckles 



on the table. " There are -two great 
principles — demand — ' ' 

" A cup of tea if you please, dear," 
interrupted Tibbs. 

" And supply — " 

" May I trouble you to hand this tea 
to Mr. Tibbs ! " said Mrs. Tibbs, inter- 
rupting the argument, and uncon- 
sciously illustrating it. 

The thread of the orator's discourse 
was broken. He drank his tea and ■ 
resumed the paper. 

« If it 's very fine," said Mr. Alfred 
Tomkins, addressing the company in 
general, " I shall ride down to Rich- 
mond to-day, and come back by the 
steamer. There are some splendid 
effects of light and shade on the 
Thames ; the contrast between the 
blueness of the sky and the yellow 
water is frequently exceedingly beau- 
tiful." Mr. Wisbottle hummed, " Flow 
on, thou shining river." 

" We have some splendid steam- 
vessels in Ireland," said O'Bleary. 

" Certainly," said Mrs. Bloss, de- 
lighted to find a subject broached in 
which she could take part. 

" The accommodations are extraor- 
dinary," said O'Bleary. 

" Extraordinary indeed," returned 
Mrs. Bloss. " When Mr. Bloss was 
alive, he was promiscuously obligated 
to go to Ireland on business. I went 
with him, and raly the manner in 
which the ladies and gentlemen were 
accommodated with berths, is not cre- 
ditable." 

Tibbs, who had been listening to 
the dialogue, looked aghast, and 
evinced a strong inclination to ask a 
question, but was checked by a look 
from his wife. Mr. Wisbottle laughed, 
and said Tomkins had made a pun ; 
and Tomkins laughed too, and said he 
had not. 

The remainder of the meal passed 
off as breakfasts usually do. Conver- 
sation flagged, and people played with 
their teaspoons. The gentlemen looked 
out at the window; walked about the 
room ; and, when they got near the 
door, dropped off one by one. Tibbs 
retired to the back parlour by his 
wife's orders, to check the green- 



186 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



grocer's weekly account ; and ulti- 
mately Mrs. Tibbs and Mrs. Bloss 
were left alone together. 

" Oh dear ! " said the latter, " I feel 
alarmingly faint ; it 's very singular." 
(It certainly was, for she had eaten 
four pounds of solids that morning.) 
" By-the-by," said Mrs. Bloss, " I have 
not seen Mr. What 's his name yet." 

" Mr. Gobler \ " suggested Mrs. 
Tibbs. 

" Yes." 

" Oh ! " said Mrs. Tibbs, « he is a 
most mysterious person. He has his 
meals regularly sent up stairs, and 
sometimes don't leave his room for 
weeks together." 

" I haven't seen or heard nothing of 
him," repeated Mrs. Bloss. 

"I dare say you'll hear him to- 
night," replied Mrs. Tibbs ; " he gene- 
rally groans a good deal on Sunday 
evenings." 

" I never felt such an interest in 
any one in my life," ejaculated Mrs. 
Bloss. A little double-knock inter- 
rupted the conversation ; Doctor Wosky 
was announced, and duly shown in. 
He was a little man with a red face, — 
dressed of course in black, with a stiff 
white neckerchief. He had a very 
good practice, and plenty of money, 
which he had amassed by invariably 
humouring the worst fancies of all the 
females of all the families he had ever 
been introduced into. Mrs. Tibbs 
offered to retire, but was entreated to 
stay. 

" Well, my dear ma'am, and how are 
we V inquired Wosky, in a soothing 
tone. 

"Very ill, doctor — very ill," said 
Mrs. Bloss, in a whisper. 

" Ah ! we must take care of our- 
selves ; — we must, indeed," said the 
obsequious Wosky, as he felt the pulse 
of his interesting patient. 

" How is our appetite V 

Mrs. Bloss shook her head. 

" Our friend requires great care," 
said Wosky, appealing to Mrs. Tibbs, 
who of course assented. " I hope, 
however, with the blessing of Provi- 
dence, that we shall be enabled to 
make her quite stout again." Mrs. 



Tibbs wondered in her own mind what 
the patient would be when she was 
made quite stout. 

" We must take stimulants," said the 
cunning Wosky — " plenty of nourish- 
ment, and, above all, we must keep 
our nerves quiet ; we positively must 
not give way to our sensibilities. We 
must take all we can get," concluded 
the doctor, as he pocketed his fee, " and 
we must keep quiet." 

" Dear man !" exclaimed Mrs. Bloss, 
as the doctor stepped into his carriage. 

" Charming creature indeed — quite 
a lady's man !" said Mrs. Tibbs, and 
Doctor Wosky rattled away to make 
fresh gulls of delicate females, and 
pocket fresh fees. 

As we had occasion, in a former 
paper, to describe a dinner 'at Mrs. 
Tibbs's ; and as one meal went off very 
like another on all ordinary occasions ; 
we will not fatigue our readers by 
entering into any other detailed ac- 
count of the domestic economy of the 
establishment. We will therefore 
proceed to events, merely premising 
that the mysterious tenant of the back 
drawing-room was a lazy, selfish, hy- 
pochondriac ; always complaining and 
never ill. As his character in many 
respects closely assimilated to that of 
Mrs. Bloss, a very warm friendship 
soon sprung up between them. He 
was tall, thin, and pale ; he always 
fancied he had a severe pain some- 
where or other, and his face invariably 
wore a pinched, screwed-up expres- 
sion ; he looked, indeed, like a man 
who had got his feet in a tub of ex- 
ceedingly hot water, against his will. 

For two or three months after Mrs. 
Bloss's first appearance in Coram- 
street, John Evenson was observed to 
become, every day more, sarcastic and 
more ill-natured ; and there was a de- 
gree of additional importance in his 
manner, which clearly showed that he 
fancied he had discovered something, 
which he only wanted a proper oppor- 
tunity of divulging. He found it at last. 

One evening, the different inmates 
of the house were assembled in the 
drawing-room engaged in their ordi- 
nary occupations. Mr. Gobler and 



THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 



187 



Mrs. Bloss were sitting at a small 
card-table near the centre window, 
playing cribbage ; Mr. Wisbottle was 
describing semicircles on the music- 
stool, turning over the leaves of a book 
on the piano, and humming most me- 
lodiously ; Alfred Tomkins was sitting 
at the round table, with his elbows duly 
squared, making a pencil sketch of a 
head considerably larger than his own ; 
O 'Bleary was reading Horace, and try- 
ing to look as if he understood it ; and 
John Evenson had drawn his chair 
close to Mrs. Tibbs's work-table, and 
was talking to her very earnestly in a 
low tone. 

"I can assure you, Mrs. Tibbs," 
said the radical, laying his forefinger 
on the muslin she was at work on ; 
"I can assure you, Mrs. Tibbs, that 
nothing but the interest I take in your 
welfare would induce me to make 
this communication. I repeat, I fear 
Wisbottle is endeavouring to gain the 
affections of that young woman, Agnes, 
and that he is in the habit of meeting 
her in the store-room on the first floor, 
over the leads. From my bedroom 
I distinctly heard voices there, last 
night. I opened my door immediately, 
and crept very softly on to the land- 
ing ; there I saw Mr. Tibbs, who, it 
seems, had been disturbed also. — 
Bless me, Mrs. Tibbs, you change 
colour !" 

" No, no — it 'a nothing," returned 
Mrs. T. in a hurried manner ; " it 's 
only the heat of the room." 

" A flush !" ejaculated Mrs. Bloss 
from the card-table ; " that 's good for 
four." 

" If I thought it was Mr. Wisbottle," 
said Mrs. Tibbs, after a pause, "he 
should leave this house instantly." 

" Go !" said Mrs. Bloss again. 

"And if I thought, continued the 
hostess with a most threatening air, 
"if I thought he was assisted by Mr. 
Tibbs"— 

" One for his nob !" said Gobler. 

" Oh," said Evenson, in a most sooth- 
ing tone — he liked to make mischief — 
" I should hope Mr. Tibbs was not in 
any way implicated. He always ap- 
peared to me very harmless." 



"I have generally found him so," 
sobbed poor little Mrs. Tibbs ; crying 
like a watering-pot. 

" Hush ! hush ! pray — Mrs. Tibbs — 
consider — we shall be observed — pray, 
don't !" said John Evenson, fearing 
his whole plan would be interrupted. 
" We will set the matter at rest with 
the utmost care, and I shall be most 
happy to assist you in doing so." 

Mrs. Tibbs murmured her thanks. » 

" When you think every one has 
retired to rest to-night," said Evenson 
very pompously, "if you'll meet me 
without a light, just outside my bed- 
room-door, by the staircase-window, 
I think we can ascertain who the 
parties really are, and you will after- 
wards be enabled to proceed as you 
think proper." 

Mrs. Tibbs was easily persuaded ; 
her curiosity was excited, her jealousy 
was roused, and the arrangement was 
forthwith made. She resumed her 
work, and John Evenson walked up 
and down the room with his hands in 
his pockets, looking as if nothing had 
happened. The game of cribbage was 
over, and conversation began again. 

"Well, Mr. O'Bleary," said the 
humming top, turning round on his 
pivot, and facing the company, " what 
did you think of Vauxhall the other 
night?" 

" Oh, it 's very fair," replied Orson, 
who had been enthusiastically delighted 
with the whole exhibition. 

" Never saw anything like that 
Captain Ross's set-out — eh V 

" No," returned the patriot, with his 
usual reservation — "except in Dublin." 1 

"I saw the Count de Canky and 
Captain Fitzthompson in the Gardens," 
said Wisbottle ; " they appeared much 
delighted." 

" Then it must be beautiful," snarled 
Evenson. 

" I think the white bears is par- 
tickerleriy well done," suggested Mrs. 
Bloss. " In their shaggy white coats 
they look just like Polar bears— don't 
you think they do, Mr. Evenson ?" 

" I think they look a great deal more 
like omnibus cads on all fours," replied 
the discontented one. 



188 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



K Upon the whole, I should have 
liked our evening very well," gasped 
Gobler; "only I caught a desperate cold 
which increased my pain dreadfully ! 
I was obliged to have several shower- 
baths, before I could leave my room." 

" Capital things those shower-baths !" 
ejaculated Wisbottle. 

" Excellent !" said Tomkins. 

« Delightful !" chimed in O'Bleary. 
(He had once seen one, outside a tin- 
man's.) 

"Disgusting machines!" rejoined 
Evenson, who extended his dislike to 
almost every created object, mascu- 
line, feminine, or neuter. 

" Disgusting, Mr. Evenson !" said 
Gobler, in a tone of strong indignation. 
— " Disgusting ! Look at their utility 
— consider how many lives they have 
saved by promoting perspiration." 

" Promoting perspiration, indeed," 
growled John Evenson, stopping short 
in his walk across the large squares in 
the pattern of the carpet — " I was ass 
enough to be persuaded some time ago 
to have one in my bed-room. 'Gad, I 
was in it once, and it effectually cured 
me, for the mere sight of it threw me 
into a profuse perspiration for six 
months afterwards." 

A titter followed this announce- 
ment, and before it had subsided James 
brought up "the tray," containing 
the remains of a leg of lamb which 
had made its debut at dinner ; bread : 
cheese ; an atom of butter in a forest 
of parsley ; one pickled walnut and the 
third of another ; and so forth. The 
boy disappeared, and returned again 
with another tray, containing glasses 
and jugs of hot and cold water. The 
gentlemen brought in their spirit- 
bottles ; the housemaid placed divers 
plated bedroom candlesticks under the 
card-table ; and the servants retired for 
the night. 

Chairs were drawn round the table, 
and the conversation proceeded in the 
customary manner. John Evenson, 
who never ate supper, lolled on the 
sofa, and amused himself by contra- 
dicting every body. O'Bleary eat as 
much as he could conveniently carry, 
and Mrs. Tibbs felt a due degree of 



indignation thereat ; Mr. Gobler and 
Mrs. Bloss conversed most affection- 
ately on the subject of pill-taking and 
other innocent amusements ; and Tom- 
kins and Wisbottle " got into an argu- 
ment ;" that is to say, they both talked 
very loudly and vehemently, each 
flattering himself that he had got some 
advantage about something, and neither 
of them having more than a very in- 
distinct idea of what they were talking 
about. An hour or two passed away; 
and the boarders and the brass candle- 
sticks retired in pairs to their respec- 
tive bedrooms. John Evenson pulled 
off his boots, locked his door, and de- 
termined to sit up until Mr. Gobler 
had retired. He always sat in the 
drawing-room an horn' after every- 
body else had left it, taking medicine, 
and groaning. 

Great Coram-street was hushed 
into a state of profound repose : it 
was nearly two o'clock. A hackney- 
coach now and then rumbled slowly 
by ; and occasionally some stray 
lawyer's clerk, on his way home to 
Somers'-town, struck his iron heel on 
the top of the coal-cellar with a noise 
resembling the click of a smoke-jack. 
A low, monotonous, gushing sound 
was heard, which added considerably 
to the romantic dreariness of the 
scene. It was the water " coming in " 
at number eleven. 

" He must be asleep by this time," 
said John Evenson to himself after 
waiting with exemplary patience for 
nearly an hour after Mr. Gobler had 
left the drawing-room. He listened 
for a few moments ; the house was 
perfectly quiet ; he extinguished his 
rushlight, and opened his bedroom- 
door. The staircase was so dark that 
it was impossible to see anything. 

" S — s — s ! " whispered the mischief- 
maker, making a noise like the first 
indication a catherine-wheel gives of 
the probability of its going off. 

" Hush ; " whispered somebody else. 

" Is that you, Mrs. Tibbs ? " 

« Yes, sir." 

« Where ? " 

" Here ;" and the misty outline of 
Mrs. Tibbs appeared at the staircase- 






THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 



189 



window, like the ghost of Queen Anne 
in the tent scene in Richard. 

" This way, Mrs. Tibbs," whispered 
the delighted busybody : " give me 
your hand — there ! Whoever these 
people are, they are in the store-room 
now, for I have been looking down 
from my window, and I could see that 
they accidentally upset their candle- 
stick, and are now in darkness. You 
have no shoes on, have you \ " 

« No," said little Mrs. Tibbs, who 
could hardly speak for trembling. 

" Well ; I have taken my boots off, 
so we can go down, close to the store- 
room-door, and listen over the banis- 
ters ;" and down stairs they both 
crept, accordingly, every board creak- 
ing like a patent mangle on a Saturday 
afternoon. 

" It 's Wisbottle and somebody I '11 
swear," exclaimed the radical in an 
energetic whisper, when they had 
listened for a few moments. 

" Hush — pray let 's hear what they 
say ! " exclaimed Mrs. Tibbs, the 
gratification of whose curiosity was 
now paramount to every other con- 
sideration. 

" Ah ! if I could but believe you," 
said a female voice coquettishly, " I 'd 
be bound to settle my missis for life." 

" What does she say % " inquired 
Mr. Evenson, who was not quite so 
well situated as his companion. 

" She says she '11 settle her missis's 
life," replied Mrs. Tibbs. " The 
wretch ! they 're plotting murder." 

" I know you want money," conti- 
nued the voice, which belonged to 
Agnes ; " and if you 'd secure me the 
five hundred pound, I warrant she 
should take fire soon enough." 

" What 's that ? " inquired Evenson 
again. He could just hear enough to 
want to hear more. 

"I think she says she'll set the 
house on fire," replied the affrighted 
Mrs. Tibbs. "But thank God I'm 
insured in the Phoenix ! " 

" The moment I have secured your 
mistress, my dear," said a man's voice 
in a strong Irish brogue, " you may 
depend on having the money." 

" Bless my soul, it 's Mr. ' Bleary ! " 



exclaimed Mrs. Tibbs, in a paren- 
thesis. 

" The villain ! " said the indignant 
Mr. Evenson. 

" The first thing to be done," conti- 
nued the Hibernian, " is to poison Mr. 
Gobler's mind." 

" Oh, certainly ; " returned Agnes. 

" What 's that ? " inquired Evenson 
again, in an agony of curiosity and a 
whisper. 

He says she's to mind and poison Mr. 
Gobler," replied Mrs. Tibbs, aghast 
at this sacrifice of human life. 

" And in regard of Mrs. Tibbs," 
continued 0' Bleary. — Mrs. Tibbs 
shuddered. 

" Hush ! " exclaimed Agnes, in a 
tone of the greatest alarm, just as 
Mrs. Tibbs was on the extreme verge 
of a fainting-fit. " Hush ! " 

" Hush ! " exclaimed Evenson, at 
the same moment to Mrs. Tibbs. 

" There 's somebody coming up 
stairs," said Agnes to O'Bleary. 

" There 's somebody coming down 
stairs," whispered Evenson to Mrs. 
Tibbs. 

"Go into the parlour, sir," said 
Agnes to her companion. " You will 
get there, before whoever it is, gets to 
the top of the kitchen stairs." 

" The drawing-room, Mrs. Tibbs ! " 
whispered the astonished Evenson to 
his equally astonished companion ; 
and for the drawing-room they both 
made, plainly hearing the rustling of 
two persons, one coming down stairs, 
and one coming up. 

" What can it be % " exclaimed Mrs. 
Tibbs. " It 's like a dream. I wouldn't 
be found in this situation for the 
world ! " 

"Nor I," returned Evenson, who 
could never bear a joke at his own 
expense. " Hush ! here they are at 
the door." 

"What fun ! " whispered one of fhe 
newcomers. — It was Wisbottle. 



Glori 



replied his compa- 



nion, in an equally low tone. — This 
was Alfred Tomkins. "Who would 
have thought it ? " 

" I told you so," said Wisbottle, in 
a most knowing whisper. " Lord bless 



190 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



you, he has paid her most extraordi- 
nary attention for the last two months. 
I saw 'em when I was sitting at the 
piano to-night." 

" Well, do you know I didn't notice 
it ? " interrupted Tomkins. 

" Not notice it ! " continued Wis- 
bottle. " Bless you ; I saw him whis- 
pering to hex', and she crying ; and 
then I '11 swear I heard him say some- 
thing about to-night when we were all 
in bed." 

" They're talking of us ! " exclaimed 
the agonised Mrs. Tibbs, as the pain- 
ful suspicion, and a sense of their 
situation, flashed upon her mind. 

'•'I know it — I know it," replied 
Evensou, with a melancholy conscious- 
ness that there was no mode of escape. 

" What 's to be done 1 we cannot 
both stop here ! " ejaculated Mrs. 
Tibbs, in a state of partial derange- 
ment. 

" I '11 get up the chimney," replied 
Evenson, who really meant what he 
said. 

" You can't," said Mrs. Tibbs, in 
despair. " You can't — it 's a register 
stove." 

" Hush ! " repeated John Evenson. 

■ Hush — hush ! " cried somebody 
down stairs. 

" What a d — d hushing ! " said 
Alfred Tomkins, who began to get 
rather bewildered. 

a There they are ! " exclaimed the 
sapient Wisbottle, as a rustling noise 
was heard in the storeroom. 

" Hark ! " whispered both the young 
men. 

" Hark ! " repeated Mrs. Tibbs and 
Evenson. 

" Let me alone, sir," said a female 
voice in the storeroom. 

" Oh, Hagnes [" cried another voice, 
which clearly belonged to Tibbs, for 
nobody else ever owned one like it. 
" Oh, Hagnes — lovely creature ! " 

" Be quiet, sir ! " (A bounce.) 

«Hag-» 

" Be quiet, sir — I am ashamed of 
you. Think of your wife, Mr. Tibbs. 
Be quiet, sir ? " 

" My wife ! " exclaimed the valo- 
rous Tibbs, who was clearly under the 



influence of gin-and-water, and a mis- 
placed attachment ; " I ate her ! Oh, 
Hagnes ! when I was in the volunteer 
corps, in eighteen hundred and — " 

" I declare I '11 scream. Be quiet, 
sir, will you ? " (Another bounce and 
a scuffle.) 

" What 's that 1 " exclaimed Tibbs, 
with a start. 

" What *s what % " said Agnes, stop- 
ping short. 

" Why, that ! " 

" Ah ! you have done it nicely now, 
sir," sobbed the frightened Agnes, as 
a tapping was heard at Mrs. Tibbs' 
bedroom-door, which would have 
beaten anv dozen woodpeckers hollow. 

« Mrs. Tibbs ! Mrs. Tibbs ! " called 
out Mrs. Bloss. " Mrs. Tibbs, pray 
get up." (Here the imitation of a 
woodpecker was resumed with tenfold 
violence.) 

" Oh, dear — dear ! " exclaimed the 
wretched partner of the depraved 
Tibbs. " She 's knocking at my door. 
We must be discovered ! What will 
they think % " 

" Mrs. Tibbs ! Mrs. Tibbs ! " 
screamed the woodpecker again. 

" What 's the matter ! " shouted 
Gobler, bursting out of the back draw- 
ing-room, like the dragon at Astley's. 

"Oh, Mr. Gobler!" cried Mrs. 
Bloss, with a proper approximation to 
hysterics ; " I think the house is on 
fire, or else there's thieves in it. 
I have heard the most dreadful 
noises !" 

" The devil you have ! " shouted 
G-obler again, bouncing back into his 
den, in happy imitation of the afore- 
said dragon, and returning immedi- 
ately with a lighted candle. " Why, 
what 's this ? Wisbottle ! Tomkins ! 
0' Bleary ! Agnes ! What the deuce ! 
all up and dressed ? " 

" Astonishing ! " said Mrs. Bloss, 
who had run down stairs, and taken 
Mr. Gobler's arm. 

" Call Mrs. Tibbs directly, some- 
body," said Gobler, turning into the 
front drawing-room. — "What! Mrs. 
Tibbs and Mr. Evenson ! ! " 

" Mrs. Tibbs and Mr. Evenson ! " 
repeated everybody, as that unhappy 






THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 



191 






pair were discovered : Mrs. Tibbs 
seated in an arm-chair by the fire- 
place, and Mr. Evenson standing by 
her side. 

We must leave the scene that ensued 
to the reader's imagination. We 
could tell, how Mrs. Tibbs forthwith 
fainted away, and how it required the 
united strength of Mr. Wisbottle and 
Mr. Alfred Tomkins to hold her in 
her chair; how Mr. Evenson explained, 
and how his explanation was evidently 
disbelieved ; how Agnes repelled the 
accusations of Mrs. Tibbs, by proving 
that she was negotiating with Mr. 
O'Bleary to influence her mistress's 
affections in his behalf ; and how Mr. 
Gobler threw a damp counterpane on 
the hopes of Mr. O'Bleary by avowing 
that he (Gobler) had already proposed 
to, and been accepted by, Mrs. Bloss ; 
how Agnes was discharged from that 
lady's service ; how Mr. O'Bleary 
discharged himself from Mrs. Tibb's 
house, without going through the form 
of previously discharging his bill ; and 
how that disappointed young gentle- 
man rails against England and the 
English, and vows there is no virtue 
or fine feeling extant, "except in 
Ireland." We repeat that we could 
tell all this, but we love to exercise 
our self-denial, and we therefore prefer 
leaving ifc to be imagined. 

The lady whom we have hitherto 
described as Mrs. Bloss, is no more. 
Mrs. Gobler exists : Mrs. Bloss has 
left us for ever. In a secluded retreat 
in Newington Butts, far, far, removed 
from the noisy strife of that great 



boarding-house, the world, the enviable 
Gobler and his pleasing wife revel in 
retirement ; happy in their complaints, 
their table, and their medicine ; wafted 
through life by the grateful prayers of 
all the purveyors of animal food 
within three miles round. 

We would willingly stop here, but 
we have a painful duty imposed upon 
us, which we must discharge. Mr. 
and Mrs. Tibbs have separated by 
mutual consent, Mrs. Tibbs receiving 
one moiety of 43Z. 15s. lOd, which we 
before stated to be the amount of her 
husband's annual income, and Mr. 
Tibbs the other. He is spending the 
evening of his days in retirement ; and 
he is spending also, annually, that small 
but honourable independence. He 
resides among the original settlers at 
Walworth ; and it has been stated, on 
unquestionable authority, that the con 
elusion of the volunteer story has been 
heard in a small tavern in that respect- 
able neighbourhood. 

The unfortunate Mrs. Tibbs has 
determined to dispose of the whole of 
her furniture by public auction, and 
to retire from a residence in which 
she has suffered so much. Mr. Robins 
has been applied to, to conduct the 
sale, and the transcendant abilities of 
the literary gentlemen connected with 
his establishment are now devoted to 
the task of drawing up the prelimi- 
nary advertisement. It is to contain, 
among a variety of brilliant matter, 
seventy-eight words in large capitals, 
and six original quotations in inverted 
commas. 



192 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



CHAPTER II. 



MR. MINNS AND HIS COUSIN. 



Mr. Augustus Minns was a bachelor, 
of about forty as he said — of about 
eight-and-forty as his friends said. 
He was always exceedingly clean, 
precise, and tidy ; perhaps somewhat 
priggish, and the most retiring man in 
the world. He usually wore a brown 
frock-coat without a wrinkle, light 
inexplicables without a spot, a neat 
neckerchief with a remarkably neat 
tie, and boots without a fault ; more- 
over, he always carried a brown silk 
umbrella with an ivory handle. He 
was a clerk in Somerset-house, or, as 
he said himself, he held " a responsible 
situation under Government." He 
had a good and increasing salary, in 
addition to some 10,000£. of his own 
(invested in the funds), and he occu- 
pied a first floor in Tavistock-street, 
Covent-garden, where he had resided 
for twenty years, having been in the 
habit of quarrelling with his landlord 
the whole time : regularly giving notice 
of his intention to quit on the first 
day of every quarter, and as regularly 
countermanding it on the second. 
There were two classes of created 
objects which he held in the deepest 
and most unmingled horror : these 
were dogs, and children. He was not 
unamiable, but he could, at an}- time, 
have viewed the execution of a dog, 
or the assassination of an infant, with 
the liveliest satisfaction. Their habits 
were at variance with his love of 
order ; and his love of order was as 
powerful as his love of fife. Mr. 
Augustus Minns had no relations, in 
or near London, with the exception of 
his cousin, Mr. Octavius Budden, to 
whose son, whom he had never seen 
(for he disliked the father) he had 
consented to become godfather by 
proxy. Mr. Budden having realised 
a moderate fortune by exercising the 
trade or calling of a corn-chandler, 
and having a great predilection for 



the country, had purchased a cottage 
in the vicinity of Stamford-hill, whither 
he retired with the wife of his bosom, 
and his only son, Master Alexander 
Augustus Budden. One evening, as 
Mr. and Mrs. B. were admiring their 
son, discussing his various merits, 
talking over his education, and disput- 
ing whether the classics should be 
made an essential part thereof, the 
lady pressed so strongly upon her 
husband the propriety of cultivating 
the friendship of Mr. Minns in behalf 
of then,- son, that Mr. Budden at last 
made up his mind, that it should not 
be his fault if he and his cousin were 
not in future more intimate. 

" I '11 break the ice, my love," said 
Mr. Budden, stirring up the sugar at 
the bottom of his glass of brandy-and- 
water, and casting a sidelong look at 
his spouse to see the effect of the 
announcement of his determination, 
" by asking Minns down to dine with 
j us, on Sunday." 

" Then, pray Budden write to 
your cousin at once," replied Mrs. 
' Budden. " Who knows, if we could 
: only get him down here, but he might 
I take a fancy to our Alexander, and 
j leave him his property ? — Alick, my 
! dear, take vour legs off the rail of the 
■ chair ! " 

"Very true," said Mr. Budden, 
musing, " very true indeed, my love ! " 
On the following morning, as Mr. 
Minns was sitting at his breakfast- 
table, alternately biting his dry toast 
and casting a look upon the columns 
of his morning paper, which he always 
read from the title to the printer's 
name, he heard a loud knock at the 
street-door ; which was shortly after- 
wards followed by the entrance of his 
servant, who put into his hand a par- 
ticularly small card, on which was 
engraven in immense letters *• Mr. 
Octavius Budden, Amelia Cottage, 



MR. MINNS AND HIS COUSIN. 



193 



(Mrs. B.'s name was Amelia), Poplar- 
walk, Stamford-bill.'" 

" Budden !" ejaculated Minns, " what 
can bring that 'vulgar man here ! — say 
I 'm asleep — say I 'm out, and shall 
never be home again — anything to 
keep him down stairs." 

" But please, sir, the gentleman 's 
coming up," replied the servant : and 
the fact was made evident, by an ap- 
palling creaking of boots on the stair- 
case accompanied by a pattering noise ; 
the cause of which, Minns could not, 
for the life of him divine. 

"Hem! — show the gentleman in," 
said the unfortunate bachelor. Exit 
servant, and enter Octavius preceded 
by a large white dog, dressed in a suit 
of fleecy hosiery, with pink eyes, large 
ears, and no perceptible tail. 

The cause of the pattering on the 
stairs was but too plain. Mr. Au- 
gustus Minns staggered beneath the 
shock of the dog's appearance. 

" My dear fellow, how are youl" said 
Budden, as he entered. 

He always spoke at the top of his 
voice, and always said the same thing 
half-a-dozen times. 

" How are you, my hearty ? " 

" How do you do, Mr. Budden ? — 
pray take a chair !" politely stammered 
the discomfited Minns. 

" Thank you — thank you — w r ell — 
how are you, eh !" 

" Uncommonly well, thank you," said 
Minns casting a diabolical look at the 
dog, who, with his hind legs on the 
floor, and his fore paws resting on 
the table, was dragging a bit of bread- 
and-butter out of a plate, preparatory 
to devouring it, with the buttered side 
next the carpet. 

" Ah, you rogue !" said Budden to 
his dog ; " you see, Minns, he 's like 
me, always at home, eh, my boy ? — 
Egad, I 'm precious hot and hungry ! 
I 'ye walked all the way from Stamford- 
hill this morning." 

" Have you breakfasted ?" inquired 
Minns. 

" Oh, no ! — came to breakfast with 
you ; so ring the bell, my dear fellow, 
will you % and let 's have another cup 
and saucer, and the cold ham. — Make 

No. 185 



myself at home you see !"' continued 
Budden, dusting his boots with a table 
napkin. " Ha ! — ha ! — ha ! — 'pon my 
life, I 'm hungry." 

Minns rang the bell, and tried to 
smile. 

" I decidedly never was so hot in 
my life," continued Octavius, wiping 
his forehead : u well, but how are you, 
Minns ? 'Pon my soul you wear capi- 
tally !" 

" D'ye think so ?" said Minns ; and 
he tried another smile. 

" 'Pon my life, I do !" 

" Mrs B. and — what 's his name — 
quite well V> 

« Alick— my son, you mean, never 
better — never better. But at such a 
place as we 've got at Poplar- walk, you 
know, he couldn 't be ill if he tried. 
When I first saw it, by Jove ! it looked 
so knowing, with the front garden, 
and the green railings, and the brass 
knocker, and all that — I really thought 
it was a cut above me." 

"Don't you think you'd like the 
ham better," interrupted Minns, "if 
you cut it the other way ?" He saw, 
with feelings which it is impossible to 
describe, that his visitor was cutting or 
rather maiming the ham, in utter vio- 
lation of all established rules. 

" No, thank ye," returned Budden, 
with the most barbarous indifference 
to crime, " I prefer it this way — it 
eats short. But I say Minns, when 
will you come down and see us ? You 
will be delighted with the place ; I 
know you will. Amelia and I were 
talking about you the other night, and 
Amelia said — another lump of sugar, 
please ; thank ye — she said, don 't you 
think you could contrive, my dear, to 
say to Mr. Minns, in a friendly way — 
come down, sir — damn the dog ! he 's 
spoiling your curtains, Minns — ha ! — 
ha! — ha!" Minns leaped from his 
seat as though he had received the 
discharge from a galvanic battery. 

" Come out, sir ! — go out, hoo !" 
cried poor Augustus, keeping never- 
theless, at a very respectful distance 
from the dog ; having read of a case of 
hydrophobia in the paper of that morn- 
ing. By dint of great exertion, much 
) 13 



194 



SKETCHES BY BOZ 



shouting, and a marvellous deal of pok- 
ing under the tables with a stick and 
umbrella, the dog was at last dislodged, 
and placed on the landing outside the 
door, where he immediately com- 
menced a most appalling howling ; at 
the same time vehemently scratching 
the paint off the two nicely- varnished 
bottom panels, until they resembled 
the interior of a back-gammon-board. 

" A good dog for the country that !" 
coolly observed Budden to the dis- 
tracted Minns, " but he 's not much 
used to confinement. But now, Minns, 
when will you come down 1 I '11 take 
no denial, positively. Let's see, to- 
day's Thursday. — Will you come on 
Sunday ? We dine at five, don 't say 
no— do." 

After a great deal of pressing, Mr. 
Augustus Minns, driven to despair, 
accepted the invitation and promised 
to be at Poplar-walk on the ensuing 
Sunday, at a quarter before five to the 
minute. 

"Now mind the direction," said 
Budden : " the coach goes from the 
Flowerpot, in Bishop sgate-street, every 
half hour. When the coach stops at 
the Swan, you'll see, immediately 
opposite you, a white house." 

" Which is your house — I under- 
stand," said Minns, wishing to cut 
short the visit, and the story, at the 
same time. 

" No, no, that 's not mine ; that 's 
Grogus's, the great ironmonger's. I 
was going to say — you turn down by 
the side of the white house till you 
can't go another step further — mind 
that ! — and then you turn to your right, 
by some stables — well ; close to you, 
you '11 see a wall with ' Beware of the 
Dog' written on it in large letters — 
(Minns shuddered) — go along by the 
side of that wall for about a quarter 
of a mile — and anybody will show you 
which is my place." 

" Very well — thank ye — good bye." 

" Be punctual." 

" Certainly : good morning." 

" I say, Minns, you 've got a card." 

" Yes*, I have : thank ye." And 
Mr. Octavius Budden departed leaving 
his cousin looking forward to his visit 



of the following Sunday, with the feel- 
ings of a penniless poet to the weekly 
visit of his Scotch landlady. 

Sunday arrived ; the sky was bright 
and clear ; crowds of people were 
hurrying along the streets, intent on 
them different schemes of pleasure for 
the day; everything and everybody 
looked cheerful and happy except Mr. 
Augustus Minns. 

The day was fine, but the heat was 
considerable ; when Mr. Minns had 
fagged up the shady side of Fleet-street, 
Cheapside, and Threadneedle-street, 
he had become pretty warm, toler- 
ably dusty, and it was getting late 
into the bargain. By the most ex- 
traordinary good fortune, however, a 
coach was waiting at the Flowerpot, 
into which Mr. Augustus Minns got, 
on the solemn assurance of the cad 
that the vehicle would start in three 
minutes — that being the very utmost 
extremity of time it was allowed 
to wait by Act of Parliament. A 
quarter of an hour elapsed, and there 
were no signs of moving. Minns 
looked at his watch for the sixth time. 
" Coachman, are you going or not ?" 
bawled Mr. Minns, with his head and 
half his body out of the coach- window. 
"Di — rectly, sir," said the coach- 
man, with his hands in his pockets, 
looking as much unlike a man in a 
hurry as possible. 

« Bill, take them cloths off." Five 
minutes more elapsed ; at the end of 
which time the coachman mounted the 
box, from whence he looked down the 
street, and up the street, and hailed 
all the pedestrians for another five 
minutes. 

" Coachman ! if you don 't go this 
moment, I shall get out," said Mr. 
Minns, rendered desperate by the late- 
ness of the hour, and the impossibility 
of being in Poplar-walk at the ap- 
pointed time. 

"Going this minute, sir," was the 
reply ; — and, accordingly, the machine 
trundled on for a couple of hundred 
yards, and then stopped again. Minns 
doubled himself up in a corner of the 
coach, and abandoned himself to his 
fate, as a child, a mother, a bandbox 



MR. MINNS AND HIS COUSIN. 



195 



and a parasol, became his fellow pass- 
engers. 

The child was an affectionate and an 
amiable infant ; the little dear mis- 
took Minns for his other parent, and 
screamed to embrace him. 

" Be quiet, dear," said the mamma, 
restraining the impetuosity of the 
darling, whose little fat legs were kick- 
ing, and stamping, and twining them- 
selves into the most complicated forms, 
in an ecstasy of impatience. " Be 
quiet, dear, that 's not your papa." 

" Thank Heaven I am not ! " 
thought Minns, as the first gleam of 
pleasure he had experienced that 
morning shone like a meteor through 
his wretchedness. 

Playfulness was agreeably mingled 
with affection in the disposition of the 
boy. When satisfied that Mr. Minns 
was not his parent, he endeavoured to 
attract his notice by scraping his drab 
trousers with his dirty shoes, poking 
his chest with his mamma's parasol, 
and other nameless endearments pe- 
culiar to infancy, with which he be- 
guiled the tediousness of the ride, 
apparently very much to his own satis- 
faction. 

When the unfortunate gentleman 
arrived at the Swan, he found to his 
great dismay, that it was a quarter 
past five. The white house, the stables, 
the " Beware of the Dog," — every land- 
mark was passed, with a rapidity not 
unusual to a gentleman of a certain 
age when too late for dinner. After 
the lapse of a few minutes, Mr. Minns 
found himself opposite a yellow brick 
house with a green door, brass knocker 
and door-plate, green window-frames 
and ditto railings, with " a garden" in 
front, that is to say, a small loose bit 
of gravelled ground, with one round 
and two scalene triangular beds, con- 
taining a fir-tree, twenty or thirty 
bulbs, and an unlimited number of 
marigolds. The taste of Mr. and Mrs. 
Budden was further displayed by the 
appearance 01 a Cupid on each side ot 
the door, perched upon a heap of large 
chalk flints, variegated with pink conch- 
shells. His knock at the door was 
answered by a stumpy boy, in drab 



livery, cotton stockings and high-lows, 
who, after hanging his hat on one of 
the dozen brass pegs which ornamented 
the passage, denominated by courtesy 
" The Hall," ushered him into a front 
drawing-room commanding a very ex- 
tensive view of the backs of the neigh- 
bouring houses. The usual ceremony 
of introduction, and so forth, over, 
Mr. Minns took his seat: not a little, 
agitated at finding that he was the last 
coiner, and, somehow or other, xhe 
Lion of about a dozen people, sitting 
together in a small drawing-room, 
getting rid of that most tedious of all 
time, the time preceding dinner. 

" Well, Brogson," said Budden, ad- 
dressing an elderly gentleman in a 
black coat, drab knee-breeches, and 
long gaiters, who, under pretence of 
inspecting the prints in an Annual, 
had been engaged in satisfying himself 
on the subject of Mr. Minns's general 
appearance, by looking at him over 
the tops of the leaves — " Well, Brog- 
son, what do Ministers mean to do ? 
Will they go out, or what l " 

" Oh — why — really, you know, I 'm 
the last person in the world to ask 
for news. Your cousin, from his 
situation, is the most likely person to 
answer the question." 

Mr. Minns assured the last speaker, 
that although he was in Somerset- 
house, he possessed no official commu- 
nication relative to the projects of his 
Majesty's Ministers. But his remark 
was evidently received incredulously ; 
and no further conjectures being- 
hazarded on the subject, a long pause 
ensued, during which the company 
occupied themselves in coughing and 
blowing their noses, until the entrance 
of Mrs. Budden caused a general rise. 

The ceremony of introduction being 
over, dinner was announced, and down 
stairs the party proceeded accordingly 
—Mr. Minns escorting Mrs. Budden 
as far as the drawing-room door, but 
being prevented, by the narrowness of 
the staircase, from extending his gal- 
lantry any farther. The dinner passed 
off as such dinners usually do. Ever 
and anon, amidst the clatter of knives 
and forks, and the hum of conversa- 
o2 



196 



SKETCHES BY BQZ. 



tion, Mr. B.'s voice might be heard, 
asking a friend to take wine, and 
assuring him he was glad to see him ; 
and a great deal of by-play took place 
between Mrs. B. and the servants, 
respecting the removal of the dishes, 
during which her countenance assumed 
all the variations of a weather-glass, 
from "stormy " to " set fair." 

Upon the dessert and wine being 
placed on the table, the servant, in 
compliance with a significant look 
from Mrs. B., brought down " Master 
Alexander," habited in a sky-blue suit 
with silver buttons; and possessing hair 
of nearly the same colour as the metal. 
After sundry praises from his mother, 
and various admonitions as to his 
behaviour from his father, he was in- 
troduced to his godfather. 

" Well, my little fellow — you are a 
fine boy, ain't you ? " said Mr. Minns, 
as happv as a tomtit on birdlime. 

" Yes." 

u How old are you ? " 

" Eight, next We'nsday. How old 
are you ? " 

" Alexander," interrupted his mo- 
ther, " how dare you ask Mr. Minns 
how old he is ! " 

" He asked me how old / was," said 
the precocious child, to whom Minnshad 
from that moment internally resolved 
that he never would bequeath one shil- 
ling. As soon as the titter occasioned 
by the observation, had subsided, a little 
smirking man with red whiskers, 
sitting at the bottom of the table, who 
during the whole of dinner had been 
endeavouring to obtain a listener to 
some stories about Sheridan, called 
out, with a very patronising air — 
" Alick, what part of speech is be ? " 

"A verb." 

" That 's a good boy," said Mrs. 
Budden with all a mother's pride. 
" Now, you know what a verb is ? " 

" A verb is a word which signifies 
to be, to do, or to suffer ; as, I am — 
I rule — I am ruled. Give me an 
apple, Ma." 

"I'll give you an apple," replied 
the man with the red whiskers, who 
was an established friend of the family, 
or in other words was always invited 



by Mrs. Budden, whether Mr. Budden 
liked it or not, " if you '11 tell me what 
is the meaning of be." 

" Be ? " said the prodigy, after a 
little hesitation — "an insect that 
gathers honey." 

" No, dear," frowned Mrs. Budden ; 
" B double E is the substantive." 

" I don't think he knows much yet 
about common substantives," said the 
smirking gentleman, who thought this 
an admirable opportunity for letting 
off a joke. " It 's clear he 's not very 
well acquainted with proper names. 
He ! he ! he ! " 

" Gentlemen," called out Mr. Bud- 
den, from the end of the table, in a 
stentorian voice, and with a very im- 
portant air, " will you have the good- 
ness to charge your glasses ? I have a 
toast to propose." 

" Hear ! hear ! " cried the gentle- 
men, passing the decanters. After 
they had made the round of the table, 
Mr. Budden proceeded — " Gentlemen ; 
there is an individual present — " 

" Hear ! hear ! " said the little man 
with red whiskers, 

" Pray be quiet, Jones," remon- 
strated Budden. 

" I say, gentlemen, there is an indi- 
vidual present," resumed the host, 
" in whose society, I am sure we must 
take great delight — and — and — the 
conversation of that individual must 
have afforded to every one present, the 
utmost pleasure." [" Thank Heaven, 
he does not mean me ! " thought 
Minns, conscious that his diffidence 
and exclusiveness had prevented his 
saying above a dozen words since he 
entered the house.] " Gentlemen, I 
am but a humble individual myself, 
and I pei'haps ought to apologise for 
allowing any individual feelings of 
friendship and affection for the person 
I allude to, to induce me to venture to 
rise, to propose the health of that 
person — a person that, I am sure — 
that is to say, a person whose virtues 
must endear him to those who know 
him — and those who have not the 
pleasure of knowing him, cannot dis- 
like him." 

" Hear ! hear ! " said the company, 



MR. MINNS AND HIS COUSIN. 



m 



in a tone of encouragement and 
approval. 

" Gentlemen," continued Budden, 
" my cousin is a man who — who is a 
relation of my own." (Hear ! hear !) 
Minns groaned audibly. " Who I am 
most happy to see here, and who, if he 
were not here, would certainly have 
deprived us of the great pleasure we 
all feel in seeing him. (Loud cries of 
hear !) Gentlemen, I feel that I have 
already trespassed on your attention 
for too long a time. With every feel- 
ing — of — with every sentiment of — 
of—" 

" Gratification " — suggested the 
friend of the family. 

" — Of gratification, I beg to pro- 
pose the health of Mr. Minns." 

" Standing, gentlemen ! " shouted 
the indefatigable little man with the 
whiskers — "and with the honours. 
Take your time from me, if you 
please. Hip! hip! hip! — Za ! — 
Hip ! hip ! hip !— Za !— Hip ! hip !— 
Za— a— a!" 

All eyes were now fixed on the 
subject of the toast, who by gulping 
down port-wine at the imminent 
hazard of suffocation, endeavoured to 
conceal his confusion. After as long 
a pause as decency would admit, he 
rose, but, as the newspapers sometimes 
say in their reports, " we regret that 
we are quite unable to give even the 
substance of the honourable gentle- 
man's observations." The words "pre- 
sent company — honour — present occa- 
sion," and " great happiness " — heard 
occasionally, and repeated at intervals, 
with a countenance expressive of the 
utmost confusion and misery, con- 
vinced the company that he was 
making an excellent speech ; and, ac- 
cordingly, on his resuming his seat, 
they cried " Bravo ! " and manifested 
tumultuous applause. Jones, who had 
been long watching his opportunity, 
then darted up. 

" Budden," said he " will you allow 
me to propose a toast ? " 

" Certainly," replied Budden, adding 
in an under tone to Minns right across 
the table. " Devilish sharp fellow 
that : you '11 be very much pleased 



with his speech. He talks equally 
well on any subject." Minns bowed, 
and Mr. Jones proceeded : 

" It has on several occasions, in 
various instances, under many circum- 
stances, and in different companies, 
fallen to my lot to propose a toast to 
those by whom, at the time, I have 
had the honour to be surrounded. I 
have sometimes, I will cheerfully own 
■ — for why should I deny it ? — felt the* 
overwhelming nature of the task I 
have undertaken, and my own utter 
incapability to do justice to the sub- 
ject. If such have been my feelings, 
however, on former occasions, what 
must they be now — now — under the 
extraordinary circumstances in which 
I am placed. (Hear ! hear !) To 
describe my feelings accurately, would 
be impossible ; but I cannot give you 
a better idea of them, gentlemen, than 
by referring to a circumstance which 
happens, oddly enough, to occur to my 
mind at the moment. On one occa- 
sion, when that truly great and illus- 
trious man, Sheridan, was — " 

Now, there is no knowing what new 
villany in the form of a joke would 
have been heaped on the grave of 
that very ill-used man, Mr. Sheridan, if 
the boy in drab had not at that mo- 
ment entered the room in a breathless 
state, to report that, as it was a very 
wet night, the nine o'clock stage had 
come round, to know whether there 
was anybody going to town, as, in 
that case, he (the nine o'clock) had 
room for one inside. 

Mr. Minns started up ; and, despite 
countless exclamations of surprise, 
and entreaties to stay, persisted in his 
determination to accept the vacant 
place. But, the brown silk umbrella 
was nowhere to be found : and as the 
coachman couldn't wait, he drove back 
to the Swan, leaving word for Mr. 
Minns to " run round " and catch him. 
However, as it did not occur to Mr. 
Minns for some ten minutes or so, that 
he had left the brown, silk umbrella with 
the ivory handle in the other coach, 
coming down ; and, moreover, as he 
was by no means remarkable for speed, 
it is no matter of surprise that when 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



he accomplished the feat of "running 
round " to the Swan, the coach — the last 
coach — had gone without him. 

It was somewhere ahout three 
o'clock in the morning, when Mr. 
Augustus Minns knocked feebly at the 
street-door of his lodgings in Tavis- 
tock-street, cold, wet, cross, and mise- 



rable. He made his will next morning, 
and his professional man informs us, 
in that strict confidence in which we 
inform the public, that neither the 
name of Mr. Octavius Budden, nor of 
Mrs. Amelia Budden, nor of Master 
Alexander Augustus Budden, appears 
therein. 



CHAPTER III. 



SENTIMENT. 



The Miss Crumptons, or to quote the 
authority of the inscription on the 
garden-gate of Minerva House, Ham- 
mersmith, "The Misses Crumpton," 
were two unusually tall, particularly 
thin, and exceedingly skinny person- 
ages : very upright, and very yellow. 
Miss Amelia Crumpton owned to 
thirty-eight, and Miss Maria Crumpton 
admitted she was forty ; an admission 
which was rendered perfectly unneces- 
sary by the self-evident fact of her 
being at least fifty. They dressed in 
the most interesting manner — like 
twins ; and looked as happy and com- 
fortable as a couple of marigolds run 
to seed. They were very precise, 
had the strictest possible ideas of pro- 
priety, wore false hair, and always 
smelt very strongly of lavender. 

Minerva House, conducted under 
the auspices of the two sisters, was a 
"finishing establishment for young 
ladies," where some twenty girls of 
the ages of from thirteen to nineteen 
inclusive, acquired a smattering of 
everything, and a knowledge of 
nothing ; instruction in French and 
Italian, dancing lessons twice a- week ; 
and other necessaries of life. The 
house was a white one, a little removed 
from the road-side, with close palings 
in front. The bed-room windows 
were always left partly open, to afford 
a bird's-eye view of numerous little 
bedsteads with very white dimity fur- 
niture, and thereby impress the passer- 



by with a due sense of the luxuries of 
the establishment ; and there was a 
front parlour hung round with highly 
varnished maps which nobody ever 
looked at, and filled with books which 
no one ever read, appropriated exclu- 
sively to the reception of parents, who, 
whenever they called, could not fail to 
be struck with the very deep appear- 
ance of the place. 

"Amelia, my dear," said Miss 
Maria Crumpton, entering the school- 
room one morning, with her false hair 
in papers : as she occasionally did, in 
order to impress the young ladies with 
a conviction of its reality. " Amelia, 
my dear, here is a most gratifying note 
I have just received. You needn't 
mind reading it aloud." 

Miss Amelia, thus advised, proceeded 
to read the following note with an air 
of great triumph : 

" Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq., 
M.P., presents his compliments to 
Miss Crumpton, and will feel much 
obliged by Miss Crumpton's calling on 
him, if she conveniently can, to-mor- 
row morning at one o'clock, as Cor- 
nelius Brook Dingwall, Esq., M.P., is 
anxious to see Miss Crumpton on the 
subject of placing Miss Brook Ding- 
wall under her charge.- 

" Adelphi. 

" Monday morning." 

" A Member of Parliament's 
daughter!" ejaculated Amelia, in an 
ecstatic tone. 



SENTIMENT. 



199 



" A Member of Parliament's 
daughter !" repeated Miss Maria, 
with a smile of delight, which, of course, 
elicited a concurrent titter of pleasure 
from all the young ladies. 

" It 's exceedingly delightful ! " said 
Miss Amelia ; whereupon all the 
young ladies murmured their admira- 
tion again. Courtiers are but school- 
boys, and court-ladies school-girls. 

So important an announcement, at 
once superseded the business of the 
day. A holiday was declared, in com- 
memoration of the great event ; the 
Miss Crumptons retired to their pri- 
vate apartment to talk it over ; the 
smaller girls discussed the probable 
manners and customs of the daughter 
of a Member of Parliament ; and the 
young ladies verging on eighteen 
wondered whether she was engaged, 
whether she was pretty, whether she 
wore much bustle, and many other 
whethers of equal importance. 

The two Miss Crumptons proceeded 
to the Adelphi at the appointed time 
next day, dressed, of course, in their 
best style, and looking as amiable as 
they possibly could — which, by the by, 
is not saying much for them. Having 
sent in their cards, through the medium 
of a red-hot looking footman in bright 
livery, they were ushered into the 
august presence of the profound 
Dingwall. 

Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq., 
M.P., was very haughty, solemn, and 
portentous. He had, naturally, a some- 
what spasmodic expression of counte- 
nance, which was not rendered the 
less remarkable by his wearing an 
extremely stiff cravat. He was won- 
derfully proud of the M.P. attached 
to his name, and never lost an oppor- 
tunity of reminding people of his 
dignity. He had a great idea of his 
own abilities, which must have been a 
great comfort to him, as no one else 
had ; and in diplomacy, on a small 
scale, in his own family arrangements, 
he considered himself unrivalled. He 
was a county magistrate, and dis- 
charged the duties of his station w'th 
all due justice and impartiality; fre- 
quently committing poachers, and 



occasionally committing himself. Miss 
Brook Dingwall was one of that nume- 
rous class of young ladies, who, like 
adverbs, may be known by their 
answering to a commonplace question, 
and doing nothing else. 

On the present occasion, this talented 
individual was seated in a small library 
at a table covered with papers, doing 
nothing, but trying to look busy- 
playing at shop. Acts of Parliament, 
and letters directed to " Cornelius 
Brook Dingwall, Esq., M.P.," were 
ostentatiously scattered over the table ; ' 
at a little distance from which, Mrs. 
Brook Dingwall was seated at work. 
One of those public nuisances, a spoiled 
child, was playing about the room, 
dressed after the most approved 
fashion — in a blue tunic with a black 
belt a quarter of a yard wide, fastened 
with an immense buckle — looking 
like a robber in a melodrama, seen 
through a diminishing glass. 

After a little pleasantry from the 
sweet child, who amused himself by 
running away with Miss Maria 
Crumpton's chair as fast as it was 
placed for her, the visitors were seated, 
and Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq. 
opened the conversation. 

He had sent for Miss Crumpton, he 
said, in consequence of the high cha- 
racter he had received of her esta- 
blishment from his friend, Sir Alfred 
Muggs. 

Miss Crumpton murmured her 
acknowledgements to him (Muggs), 
and Cornelius proceeded. 

" One of my principal reasons, Miss 
Crumpton, for parting with my 
daughter, is, that she has lately 
acquired some sentimental ideas, 
which it is most desirable to eradicate 
from her young mind." (Here the 
little innocent before noticed, fell out 
of an arm-chair with an awful crash.) 
" Naughty boy ! " said his mamma, 
who appeared more surprised at his 
taking the liberty of falling down, 
than at anything else ; " I '11 ring 
the bell for James to take him away." 
"Pray don't check him my love," 
said the diplomatist, as soon as he 
could make himself heard amidst the 



200 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



unearthly howling consequent upon 
the threat and the tumble. " It all 
arises from his great flow of spirits." 
This last explanation was addressed 
to Miss Crura pton. 

" Certainly, sir," replied the antique 
Maria : not exactly seeing, however, 
the connexion between a flow of 
animal spirits, and a fall from an arm- 
chair. 

Silence was restored, and the M.P. 
resumed : " Now, I know nothing so 
likely to effect this object, Miss 
Crumpton, as her mixing constantly 
in the society of girls of her own age; 
and, as I know that in your establish- 
ment she will meet such as are not 
likely to contaminate her young mind, 
I propose to send her to you." 

The youngest Miss Crumpton ex- 
pressed the acknowledgments of the 
establishment generally. Maria was 
rendered speechless by bodily pain. 
The dear little fellow, having re- 
covered his animal spirits, was stand- 
ing upon her most tender foot, by 
way of getting his face (which looked 
like a capital O in a red lettered 
play-bill) on a level with the writing- 
table. 

" Of course, Lavinia will be a par- 
lour boarder," continued the enviable 
father; "and on one point I wish my 
directions to be strictly observed. The 
fact is, that some ridiculous love af- 
fair, with a person much her inferior in 
life, has been the cause of her present 
state of mind. Knowing that of 
course, under your care, she can have 
no opportunity of meeting this person, 
I do not object to — indeed, I should 
rather prefer — her mixing with such 
society as you see yourself." 

This important statement was again 
interrupted by the high-spirited little 
creature, in the excess of his joyous- 
ness breaking a pane of glass, and 
nearly precipitating himself into an 
adjacent area. James was rung for; 
considerable confusion and screaming 
succeeded; two little blue legs were 
seen to kick violently in the air as the 
man left the room, and the child was 
gone. 

" Mr. Brook Dingwall would like 



Miss Brook Dingwall to learn every- 
thing," said Mrs. Brook Dingwall, who 
hardly ever said anything at all. 

"Certainly," said both the Miss 
Crumptons together. 

" And as I trust the plan I have 
devised will be effectual in weaning 
my daughter from this absurd idea, 
Miss Crumpton," continued the legis- 
lator, " I hope you will have the 
goodness to comply, in all respects, 
with any request I may forward to you." 

The promise was of course made ; 
and after a lengthened discussion, con- 
ducted on behalf of the Dingwalls with 
the most becoming diplomatic gravity, 
and on that of the Crumptons with pro- 
found respect, it was finally arranged 
that Miss Lavinia should be forwarded 
to Hammersmith on the next day but 
one, on which occasion the half-yearly 
ball given at the establishment was to 
take place. It might divert the dear 
girl's mind. This, by the way, was 
another bit of diplomacy. 

Miss Lavinia was introduced to her 
future governess, and both the Miss 
Crumptons pronounced her " a most 
charming girl ;" an opinion which, by 
a singular coincidence, they always 
entertained of any new pupil. 

Courtesies were exchanged, acknow- 
ledgments expressed, condescension 
exhibited, and the interview termi- 
nated. 

Preparations, to make use of thea- 
trical phraseology, "on a scale of mag- 
nitude never before attempted," were 
incessantly made at Minerva House to 
give every effect to the forthcoming ball. 
The largest room in the house was plea- 
singly ornamented with blue calico 
roses, plaid tulips, and other equally 
natural-looking artificial flowers, the 
work of the young ladies themselves. 
The carpet was taken up, the folding- 
doors were taken down, the furniture 
was taken out, and rout-seats were taken 
in. The linen-drapers of Hammersmith 
were astounded at the sudden demand 
for blue sarsenet ribbon, and long 
white gloves. Dozens of geraniums 
were purchased for bouquets, and a, 
harp and two violins were bespoke 
from town, in addition to the grand 






SENTIMENT. 



201 



piano already on the premises. The 
young ladies who were selected to 
show off on the occasion, and do credit 
to the establishment, practised inces- 
santly, much to their own satisfaction, 
and greatly to the annoyance of the 
lame old gentleman over the way ; 
and a constant correspondence was 
kept up, between the Misses Crumpton 
and the Hammersmith pastrycook. 

The evening came; and then there 
was such a lacing of stays, and tying 
of sandals, and dressing of hair, as 
never can take place with a proper 
degree of bustle out of a boarding- 
school. The smaller girls managed 
to be in everybody's way, and were 
pushed about accordingly ; and the 
elder ones dressed, and tied, and flat- 
tered, and envied, one another, as 
earnestly and sincerely as if they had 
actually come out. 

" How do I look, dear % *' inquired 
Miss Emily Smithers, the belle of the 
house, of Miss Caroline Wilson, who 
was her bosom friend, because she was 
the ugliest girl in Hammersmith, or 
out of it. 

" Oh ! charming, dear. How do I \ " 

" Delightful ! you never looked so 
handsome," returned the belle, adjust- 
ing her own dress, and not bestowing 
a glance on her poor companion. 

" I hope young Hilton will come 
early," said another young lady to 
Miss somebody else, in a fever of ex- 
pectation. 

" I 'm sure he'd be highly flattered 
if he knew it," returned the other, who 
was practising Vete. 

" Oh ! he 5 s so handsome," said the 
first. 

" Such a charming person I" added 
a second. 

" Such a distingue air ;" said a 
third. 

"Oh, what do you think?" said 
another girl, running into the room ; 
" Miss Crumpton says her cousin 's 
coming." 

" What ! Theodosius Butler \ " said 
everybody in raptures. 

" Is he handsome \ " inquired a 
novice. 

" No, not particularly handsome," 



was the general reply ; " but, oh, so 
clever ! " 

Mr. Theodosius Butler was one of 
those immortal geniuses who are to be 
met with, in almost every circle. 
They have, usually, very deep mono- 
tonous voices. They always persuade 
themselves that they are wonderful 
persons, and that they ought to be 
very miserable, though they don't 
precisely know why. They are very 
conceited, and usually possess half 
an idea ; but, with enthusiastic young 
ladies, and silly young gentlemen, 
they are very wonderful persons. 
The individual in question, Mr. Theo- 
dosius, had written a pamphlet con- 
taining some very weighty considera- 
tions on the expediency of doing 
something or other ; and as every 
sentence contained a good many words 
of four syllables, his admirers took it 
for granted that he meant a good deal, 

" Perhaps that 's he," exclaimed 
several young ladies, as the first pull 
of the evening threatened destruction 
to the bell of the gate. 

An awful pause ensued. Some boxes 
arrived and a young lady — Miss 
Brook Dingwall, in full ball costume, 
with an immense gold chain round 
her neck, and her dress looped up 
with a single rose ; an ivory fan in 
her hand, and a most interesting ex- 
pression of despair in her face. 

The Miss Ci-umptons inquired after 
the family, with the most excruciating 
anxiety, and Miss Brook Dingwall was 
formally introduced to her future 
companions. The Miss Crumptons 
conversed with the young ladies in the 
most mellifluous tones, in order that 
Miss Brook Dingwall might be pro- 
perly impressed with their amiable 
treatment. 

Another pull at the bell. Mr. 
Dadson the writing-master, and his 
wife. The wife in green silk, with 
shoes and cap-trimmings to corres- 
pond ; the writing-master in a white- 
waistcoat, black knee-shorts, and ditto 
silk stockings, displaying a leg large 
enough for two writing-masters. The 
young ladies whispered one another, 
and the writing-master and his wife 



202 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



flattered the Miss Crumptcras, who 
were dressed in amber, with long 
sashes, like dolis. 

Repeated pulls at the bell, and 
arrivals too numerous to particularise : 
papas and mammas, and aunts and 
uncles, the owners and guardians of 
the different pupils ; the singing- 
master, Signor Lobskini, in a black 
wig ; the piano-forte player and the 
violins ; the harp, in a state of intoxi- 
cation; and some twenty young men, 
who stood near the door, and talked 
to one another, occasionally bursting 
into a giggle. A general hum of con- 
versation, Coffee handed round, and 
plentifully partaken of by fat mammas, 
who looked like the stout people who 
come on in pantomimes for the sole 
purpose of being knocked down. 

The popular Mr. Hilton was the 
next arrival ; and he having, at the re- 
quest of the Miss Crumptons, under- 
taken the office of Master of the 
Ceremonies, the quadrilles commenced 
with considerable spirit. The young 
men by the door gradually advanced 
into the middle of the room, and in 
time became sufficiently at ease to 
consent to be introduced to partners. 
The writing-master danced every set, 
springing about with the most fearful 
agility, and his wife played a rubber 
in the back-parlour — a little room with 
five book-shelves, dignified by the 
name of the study. Setting her down 
to whist was a half-yearly piece of 
generalship on the part of the Miss 
Crumptons ; it was necessary to hide 
her somewhere, on account of her being 
a fright. 

The interesting Lavinia Brook Ding- 
wall was the only girl present, who ap- 
peared to take no interest in the pro- 
ceedings of the evening. In vain was 
she solicited to dance ; in vain was 
the universal homage paid to her as 
the daughter of a member of parlia- 
ment. She was equally unmoved by 
the splendid tenor of the inimitable 
Lobskini, and the brilliant execution 
of Miss Lsetitia Parsons, whose per- 
formance of " The Recollections of 
Ireland " was universally declared to 
be almost equal to that of Moscheles 



himself. Not even the announcement 
of the arrival of Mr. Theodosius Butler 
could induce her to leave the corner 
of the back drawing-room in which she 
was seated. 

" Now, Theodosius," said Miss 
Maria Crumpton, after that enlight- 
ened pamphleteer had nearly run the 
gauntlet of the whole company, "I 
must introduce you to our new pupil." 

Theodosius looked as if he cared for 
nothing earthly. 

" She 's the daughter of a member of 
parliament," said Maria. — Theodosius 
started. 

" And her name is ? " he in- 
quired. 

" Miss Brook Dingwall." 

" Great Heaven ! " poetically ex- 
claimed Theodosius, in a low tone. 

Miss Crumpton commenced the 
introduction in due form. Miss Brook 
Dingwall languidly raised her head. 

" Edward ! " she exclaimed, with a 
half- shriek, on seeing the well-known 
nankeen legs. 

Fortunately, as Miss Maria Crumpton 
possessed no remarkable share of pene- 
tration, and as it was one of the diplo- 
matic arrangements that no attention 
was to be paid to Miss Lavinia's inco- 
herent exclamations, she Avas perfectly 
unconscious of the mutual agitation of 
the parties ; and therefore, seeing that 
the offer of his hand for the next 
quadrille, was accepted, she left him by 
the side of Miss Brook Dingwall. 

" Oh, Edward ! " exclaimed that 
most romantic of all romantic young 
ladies, as the light of science seated 
himself beside her, " Oh, Edward, is it 
you \ " 

Mr. Theodosius assured the dear 
creature, in the most impassioned 
manner, that he was not conscious of 
being anybody but himself. 

" Then why — why — this disguise ? 
Oh ! Edward M'Neville Walter, what 
have I not suffered on your account ? " 

" Lavinia, hear me," replied the 
hero, in his most poetic strain. "Do 
not condemn me, unheard. If any- 
thing that emanates from the soul of 
such a wretch as I, can occupy a place 
in your recollection — if any being, so 



SENTIMENT. 



203 



vile, deserve your notice— you may 
remember that I ouce published a 
pamphlet (aud paid for its publication) 
entitled ' Considerations on the Policy 
of Removing the Duty on Bees'-wax.' " 

a I do — I do ! " sobbed Lavinia. 

" That," continued the lover, " was 
a subject to which your father was 
devoted heart and soul." 

" He was — he was ! * reiterated the 
sentimentalist. 

" I knew it," continued Theodosius, ! 
tragically ; " I knew it — I forwarded 
him a copy. He wished to know me. 
Could I disclose my real name ? Never ! 
No, I assumed that name which you ■ 
have so often pronounced in tones of 
endearment. As M'Neville Walter, I 
devoted myself to the stirring cause ; 
as M'Neville Walter, I gained your 
heart ; in the' same character I was 
ejected from your house by your 
father's domestics; and in no character 
at all have I since been enabled to see j 
you. We now meet again, and I 
proudly own that I am — Theodosius ' 
Butler!" 

The young lady appeared perfectly , 
satisfied with this argumentative ad- 
dress, and bestowed a look of the I 
most ardent affection on the immortal 
advocate of bees'-wax. 

'•'May I hope," said he, "that the 
promise your father's violent behaviour 
interrupted, may be renewed \ " 

" Let us join this set," replied La- 
vinia, coquettishly — for girls of nine- 
teen cam coquette. 

"No," ejaculated he of the nan- 
keens ; " I stir not from this soot, 
writhing under this torture of suspense. 
May I — may I — hope ? " 

" You may/' 

" The promise is renewed % " 

" It is." 

" I have your permission % " 

" You have." 

" To the fullest extent 1 " 

" You know it," returned the blush- 
ing Lavinia. The contortions of the 
interesting Butlers visage expressed 
his raptures. 

We could dilate upon the occur- 
rences that ensued. How Mr. Theo- 
dosius and Miss Lavinia danced, and 



talked, and sighed for the remainder of 
the evening — how the Miss Crumptons 
were delighted thereat. How the 
writing-master continued to frisk about 
with one-horse power, and how his 
wife, from some unaccountable freak, 
left the whist-table in the little back 
parlour, and persisted in displaying 
her green head-dress in the most con- 
spicuous part of the drawing-room. 
How the supper consisted ot small 
triangular sandwiches in trays, and a 
tart here and there by way -of variety; 
and how the visitors consumed warm 
water disguised with lemon, and dotted 
with nutmeg, under the denomination 
of negus. These, and other matters 
of as much interest, however, we pass 
over, for the purpose of describing a 
scene of even more importance. 

A fortnight after the date of the 
ball, Cornelius Brook Dingwall, Esq., 
M.P., was seated at the same library- 
table, and in the same room, as we have 
before described. He was alone, and 
his face bore an expression of deep 
thought and solemn gravity — he was 
drawing up " A Bill for the better 
observance of Easter Monday." 

The footman tapped at the door — 
the legislator started from his reverie, 
and " Miss Crumpton " was announced. 
Permission was given for Miss Crunip- 
ton to enter the sanctum ; Maria came 
sliding in, and having taken her seat 
with a due portion of affectation, the 
footman retired, and the governess was 
left alone with the M.P. Oh ! how 
she longed for the presence of a third 
party ! Even the facetious young gen- 
tleman w r ould have been a relief. 

Miss Crumpton began the duet. 
She hoped Mrs. Brook Dingwall and 
the handsome little boy were in good 
health. 

They were. Mrs. Brook Dingwall 
and little Frederick were at Brighton. 

" Much obliged to you, Miss Crump- 
ton," said Cornelius, in his most digni- 
fied manner, "for your attention in 
calling this morning. I should have 
driven down to Hammersmith, to see 
Lavinia, but your account was so very 
satisfactory, and my duties in the 
House occupy me so much, that I de- 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



terniined to postpone it for a week. 
How has she gone on 1 " 

" Very well indeed, sir," returned 
Maria, dreading to inform the father 
that she had gone off. 

" Ah, I thought the plan on which 
I proceeded would be a match for 
her." 

Here was a favourable opportunity 
to say that somebody else had been 
a match for her. But the unfortunate 
governess was unequal to the task. 

'•' You have persevered strictly in 
the line of conduct I prescribed, Miss 
Crumpton ? " 

" Strictly, sir." 

'•' You tell me in your note that her 
spirits gradually improved." 

" Very much indeed, sir." 

"To be sure. I was convinced they 
would." 

'•' But I fear, sir," said Miss Crump- 
ton, with visible emotion, " I fear the 
plan has not succeeded, quite so well as 
we could have wished." 

" No ! " exclaimed the prophet. 
'■' Bless me ! Miss Crumpton, you look 
alarmed. What has happened ? " 

'■ Miss Brook Dingwall, sir — " 

"Yes, ma'am?" 

" Has gone, sir " — said Maria, ex- 
hibiting a strong inclination to faint. 

« Gone ! " 

K Eloped, sir." 

" Eloped ! — Who with — when — 
where— howl" almost shrieked the 
agitated diplomatist. 

The natural yellow of the unfortu- 
nate Maria's face changed to all the 
hues of the rainbow, as she laid a small 
packet on the member s table. 

He hurriedly opened it. A letter 
from his daughter, and another from 
Theodosius. He glanced over their 
contents — " Ere this reaches you, far 
distant — appeal to feelings — love to 
distraction — bees'-wax — slavery," &c, I 
&c. He dashed his hand to his fore- I 
head, and paced the room with fear- ! 



fully long strides, to the great alarm 
of the precise Maria. 

'•' Now mind ; from this time for- 
ward," said Mr. Brook Dingwall, 
suddenly stopping at the table, and 
beating time upon it with his hand ; 
" from this time forward, I never will, 
under any circumstances whatever, 
permit a man who writes pamphlets 
to enter any other room of this house 
but the kitchen. — 1 11 allow my daughter 
and her husband one hundred and 
fifty pounds a-year, and never see 
their faces again ; and, damme ! 
ma'am, I '11 bring in a bill for the 
abolition of finishing-schools !" 

Some time has elapsed since this 
passionate declaration. Mr. and Mrs. 
Butler are at present rusticating in a 
small cottage at Ball's-pond, pleasantly 
situated in the immediate vicinity of a 
brick-field. They have no family. 
Mr. Theodosius looks very important, 
and writes incessantly ; but, in con- 
sequence of a gross combination on 
the part of publishers, none of his 
productions appear in print. His 
young wife begins to think that ideal 
misery is preferable to real unhap- 
piness ; and that a marriage, contracted 
in haste, and repented at leisure, is the 
cause of more substantial wretched- 
ness than she ever anticipated. 

On cool reflexion, Cornelius Brook 
Dingwall, Esq., M.P., was reluctantly 
compelled to admit that the untoward 
result of his admirable arrangements 
was attributable, not to the Miss 
Crumptons, but his own diplomacy. 
He however consoles himself, like 
some other small diplomatists, by 
satisfactorily proving that if his plans 
did not succeed, they ought to have 
done so. Minerva House is in statu, 
quo, and " The Misses Crumpton " 
remain in the peaceable and undis- 
turbed enjoyment of all the advan- 
tages resulting from their Finishing- 
School. 






THE TUGGS'S AT RAMSGATE. 



2C5 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE TUGGS S AT RAMSGATE. 



Once upon a time, there dwelt, in a 
narrow street on the Surrey side of 
the water, within three minutes' walk 
of old London Bridge, Mr. Joseph 
Tuggs — a little dark-faced man, with 
shiny hair, twinkling eyes, short legs, 
and a body of very considerable thick- 
ness, measuring from the centre button 
of his waistcoat in front, to the orna- 
mental buttons of his coat behind. 
The figure of the amiable Mrs. Tuggs, 
if not perfectly symmetrical, was de- 
cidedly comfortable ; and the form of 
her only daughter, the accomplished 
Miss Charlotte Tuggs, was fast ripen- 
ing into that state of luxuriant plump- 
ness which had enchanted the eyes, and 
captivated the heart, of Mr. Joseph 
Tuggs in his earlier days. Mr. Simon 
Tuggs, his only son, and Miss Charlotte 
Tuggs's only brother, was as differently 
formed in body, as he was differently 
constituted in mind,from the remainder 
of his famihy. There was that elonga- 
tion in his thoughtful face, and that 
tendency to weakness in his interesting 
legs, which tell so forcibly of a great 
mind and romantic disposition. The 
slightest traits of character in such a 
being, possess no mean interest to 
speculative minds. He usually ap- 
peared in public, in capacious shoes 
with black cotton stockings ; and was 
observed to be particularly attached to 
a black glazed stock, without tie or 
ornament of any description. 

There is perhaps no profession, how- 
ever useful ; no pursuit, however; 
meritorious ; which can escape the 
petty attacks of vulgar minds. Mr. 
Joseph Tuggs was a grocer. It might 
be supposed that a grocer was beyond 
the breath of calumny ; but no — the 
neighbours stigmatised him as a 
chandler ; and the poisonous voice of 
envy distinctly asserted that he dis- 
pensed tea and coffee by the quartern, 
retailed sugar by the ounce, cheese by 



the slice, tobacco by the screw, and 
butter by the pat. These taunts, how- 
ever, were lost upon the Tuggs's. Mr. 
Tuggs attended to the grocery depart-* 
ment; Mrs. Tuggs to the cheese- 
mongery ; and Miss Tuggs to her 
education. Mr. Simon Tuggs kept his 
father's books, and his own counsel. 

One fine spring afternoon, the latter 
gentleman was seated on a tub of 
weekly Dorset, behind the little red 
desk with a wooden rail, which orna- 
mented a corner of the counter ; when 
a stranger dismounted from a cab, and 
hastily entered the shop. He was 
habited in black cloth, and bore with 
him, a green umbrella, and a blue 
bag. 

"Mr. Tuggs?" said the stranger, 
incmiringly. 

"My name is Tuggs," replied Mr. 
Simon. 

" It 's the other Mr. Tuggs," said 
the stranger, looking towards the glass 
door which led into the parlour behind 
the shop, and on the inside of which, 
the round face of Mr. Tuggs, senior, 
was distinctly visible, peeping over the 
curtain. 

Mr. Simon gracefully waved his 
pen, as if in intimation of his wish 
that his father would advance. Mr. 
Joseph Tuggs, with considerable 
celerity, removed his face from the 
curtain, and placed it before the 
stranger. 

" I come from the Temple," said the 
man with the bag. 

« From the Temple ! " said Mrs. 
Tuggs, flinging open the door of the 
little parlour and disclosing Miss Tuggs 
in perspective. 

" From the Temple ! " said Miss 
Tuggs and Mr. Simon Tuggs at the 
same moment. 

"From the Temple!" said Mr. 
Joseph Tuggs, turning as pale as a 
Dutch cheese. 



206 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



a From the Temple," repeated the 
man with the bag ; " from Mr. Cower s, 
the solicitor's. J\Ir. Tuggs, I congra- 
tulate you, sir. Ladies, I wish you 
joy of your prosperity I We have 
.been successful." And the man with 
the bag leisurely divested himself of 
his umbrella and glove, as a preliminary 
to shaking hands with Mr. Joseph 
Tuggs. 

Nov.- the words " we have been 
successful," had no sooner issued from 
the mouth of the man with the bag, 
than Mr. Simon Tuggs rose from the 
tub of weekly Dorset, opened his eyes 
very wide, gasped for breath, made 
figures of eight in the air with his pen, 
and finally fell into the arms of his 
anxious mother, and fainted away, 
without the slightest ostensible cause 
or pretence. 

" Water ! " screamed Mrs. Tuggs. 

" Look up, my son," exclaimed Mr. 
Tuggs. 

"Simon ! dear Simon !" shrieked 
Miss Tuggs. 

" I 'm better now," said Mr. Simon 
Tuggs. "What! successful !" And 
then, as corroborative evidence of his 
being better, he fainted away again, 
and was borne into the little parlour 
by the united efforts of the remainder 
of the family, and the man with the 
bag. 

To a casual spectator, or to any one 
unacquainted with the position of the 
family, this fainting would have been | 
unaccountable. To those who under- 
stood the mission of the man with the 
bag, and were moreover acquainted 
with the excitability of the nerves of 
Mr. Simon Tuggs, it was quite com- 
prehensible. A long-pending law-suit 
respecting the validity of a willj had 
been unexpectedly decided ; and Mr. 
Joseph Tuggs was the possessor of 
twenty thousand pounds. 

A prolonged consultation took place, 
that night, in the little parlour — a con- 
sultation that was to settle the future 
destinies of the Tuggs's. The shop 
was shut up, at an unusually early 
hour ; and many were the unavailing 
kicks bestowed upon the closed door 
by applicants for quarterns of sugar, 



or half-quarterns of bread, or pen- 
n'orths of peppei', which were to have 
been "left till Saturday," but which 
fortune had decreed were to be left 
alone altogether. 

" We must certainly give up busi- 
ness," said Miss Tuggs. 

" Oh, decidedly," said Mrs. Tuggs. 
" Simon shall go to the bar," said 
Mr. Joseph Tuggs. 

"And I shall always sign myself 
' Cymon ' in future," said his son. 

"And I shall call myself Charlotta," 
said Miss Tuggs. 

" And you must always call me 
\ e Ma,' and father < Pa,' " said Mrs. 
j Tuggs 

" Yes, and Pa must leave off all 
I his vulgar habits," interposed Miss 
| Tuggs. 

" I '11 take care of all that," responded 
I Mr. Joseph Tuggs, complacently. He 
I was, at that very moment, eating pickled 
salmon with a pocket-knife. 

" We must leave town immediately," 
said Mr. Cymon Tuggs. 

Everybody concurred that this was 
I an indispensable preliminary to being 
■ genteel. The question then arose. 
j Where should they go ? 

" Gravesend ?" mildly suggested Mr. 
Joseph Tuggs. The idea was unani- 
mously scouted. Gravesend was low. 
" Margate ? " insinuated Mrs. Tuggs. 
Worse and worse — nobody there, but 
tradespeople. 

" Brighton I " Mr. Cymon Tuggs 
opposed an insurmountable objection. 
All the coaches had been upset, in 
turn, within the last three weeks; each 
coach had averaged two passengers 
killed, and six wounded; and, in every 
case, the newspapers had distinctly un- 
derstood that " no blame whatev er was 
attributable to the coachman." 

" Ramsgate I " ejaculated Mr.Cymon, 
thoughtfully. To be sure : how stupid 
they must have been, not to have 
thought of that before ! Ramsgate was 
just the place of all others. 

Two months after this conversation, 
the City of London Ramsgate steamer 
was running gaily down the river. Her 
flag was flying, her band was playing, 
her passengers were conversing; every- 






THE TUGGS'S AT RAMSGATE. 



207 



thing about her seemed gay and lively. 
— No wonder — the Tuggs's were on 
board. 

"Charming, ain't it? " said Mr. Joseph 
Tuggs, in a bottle-green great-coat, with 
a velvet collar of the same, and a blue 
travelling- cap with a gold band. 

" Soul-inspiring, 1 ' replied Mr.Cymon 
Tuggs — he was entered at the bar. 
" Soul-inspiring ! " 

" Delightful morning, sir ! " said a 
stoutish, military-looking gentleman in 
a blue surtout buttoned up to his chin, 
and white trousers chained down to the 
soles of his boots. 

Mr. Cymon Tuggs took upon himself 
the responsibility of answering the ob- 
servation. " Heavenly ! " he replied. 

" You are an enthusiastic admirer 
of the beauties of Nature, sir % " said 
the military gentleman. 

* I am, sir," replied Mr. Cymon 
Tuggs. 

" Travelled much, sir ? " inquired 
the military gentleman. 

"Not much," replied Mr. Cymon 
Tuggs. 

" You 've been on the continent, of 
course \ " inquired the military gentle- 
man. 

" Not exactly," replied Mr. Cymon 
Tuggs — in a qualified tone, as if he 
wished it to be implied that he had 
gone half-way and come back again. 

" You of course intend your son to 
make the grand tour, sir ? " said the 
military gentleman, addressing Mr. 
Joseph Tuggs. 

As Mr. Joseph Tuggs did not pre- 
cisely understand what the grand tour 
was, or how such an article was manu- 
factured, he replied, " Of course." Just 
as he said the w r ord, there came trip- 
ping up, from her seat at the stern of 
the vessel, a young lady in a puce- 
coloured silk cloak, and boots of the 
same ; with long black ringlets, large 
black eyes, brief petticoats, and unex- 
ceptionable ankles. 

" Walter, my dear," said the young 
lady to the military gentleman. 

" Yes, Belinda, my love," responded 
the military gentleman to the black- 
eyed young lady. 

" What have you left me alone so 



long for % " said the young lady. " I 
have been stared out of countenance 
by those rude young men." 

" What ! stared at % " exclaimed 
the military gentleman, with an em- 
phasis which made Mr. Cymon Tuggs 
withdraw his eyes from the young 
lady's face with inconceivable rapidity. 
" Which young men — where ? " and 
the military gentleman clenched his 
fist, and glared fearfully on the cigax*- 
smokers around. 

" Be calm, Walter, I entreat," said 
the young lady. 

" I won't," said the military gentle- 
man. 

" Do, sir," interposed Mr. Cymon 
Tuggs. " They ain't worth your 
notice." 

" No — no — they are not, indeed," 
urged the young lady. 

" I will be calm," said the military 
gentleman. " You speak truly, sir. I 
thank you for a timely remonstrance, 
which may have spared me the guilt 
of manslaughter." Calming his wrath, 
the military gentleman wrung Mr. 
Cymon Tuggs by the hand. 

" My sister, sir ! " said Mr. Cymon 
Tuggs ; seeing that the military gen- 
tleman was casting an admiring look 
towards Miss Charlotta. 

" My wife, ma'am — Mrs. Captain 
Waters," said the military gentleman, 
presenting the black-eyed young lady. 

" My mother, ma'am — Mrs. Tuggs," 
said Mr. Cymon. The military gentle- 
man and his wife murmured enchant- 
ing courtesies; and the Tuggs's looked 
as unembarrassed as they could. 

" Walter, my dear," said the black- 
eyed young lady, after they had sat 
chatting with the Tuggs's some half 
hour. 

" Yes, my love," said the military 
gentleman. 

" Dont you think this gentleman 
(with an inclination of the head to- 
wards Mr. Cymon Tuggs) is very much 
like the Marquis Carriwini ? " 

" Lord bless me, very ! " said the 
military gentleman. 

" It struck me, the moment I sd&v 
him," said the young lady, gazing in- 
tently, and with a melancholy air, on 



208 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



the scarlet countenance of Mr. Cymon 
Tuggs. Mr. Cymon Tuggs looked at 
everybody; and,;fmdingthat everybody 
was looking at him, appeared to feel 
some temporary difficulty in disposing 
of Ins eyesight. 

" So exactly the air of the marquis," 
said the military gentleman. 

" Quite extraordinary !" sighed the 
military gentleman's lady. 

" You don't know the marquis, sir ? " 
inquired the military gentleman. 

Mr. Cymon Tuggs stammered a 
negative. 

" If you did," continued Captain 
Yv'alter Waters, u you would feel how 
much reason you have to be proud of 
the resemblance — a most elegant man, 
with a most prepossessing appearance." 
"He is — he is indeed ! " exclaimed 
Belinda Waters energetically. As 
her eye caught that of Mr. Cymon 
Tuggs, she withdrew it from his fea- 
tures in bashful confusion. 

All this, was highly gratifying to the 
feelings of the Tuggs's; and when, in 
the course of farther conversation, it 
was discovered that Miss Charlotta ' 
Tuggs was the fac simile of a titled j 
relative of Mrs. Belinda Waters, and 
that Mrs. Tuggs herself was the very 
picture of the Dowager Duchess of < 
Dobbleton, their delight in the acqui- j 
sition of so genteel and friendly an 
acquaintance, knew no bounds. Even 
the dignity of Captain Walter Waters ! 
relaxed, to that degree, that he suffered j 
himself to be prevailed upon by Mr. j 
Joseph Tuggs, to partake of cold pigeon- 
pie and sherry, on deck; and a most 
delightful conversation, aided by these 
agreeable stimulants, was prolonged, 
until they ran alongside Ramsgate Pier. 
" Good by'e, dear ! " said Mrs. Cap- 
tain Waters to Miss Charlotta Tuggs, 
just before the bustle of landing com- 
menced ; " we shall see you on the 
sands in the morning ; and, as we are 
sure to have found lodgings before 
then, I hope we shall be inseparables 
for many weeks to come." 

" Oh! I hope so," said Miss Charlotta 
T#ggs, emphatically. 

" Tickets, ladies and gen'lm'n," said 
the man on the paddle-box. 



" W r ant a porter, sir ? " inquired a 

dozen men in smock-frocks. 

u Now, my dear ! " said Captain 
W r aters. 

" Good by'e ! " said Mrs. Captain 
Waters— " good by'e, Mr. Cymon ! " 
and with a pressure of the hand which 
threw the amiable young man's nerves 
into a state of considerable derange- 
ment, Mrs. Captain Waters disappeared 
among the crowd. A pair of puce- 
coloured boots were seen ascending the 
steps, a white handkerchief fluttered, 
a black eye gleamed. The Waters's 
were gone, and Mr. Cymon Tuggs was 
alone in a heartless world. 

Silently and abstractedly, did that 
too sensitive youth follow his revered 
parents, and a train of smock-frocks 
and Avheelbarrows, aloug the pier, until 
the bustle of the scene around, recalled 
him to himself. The sun was shining 
brightly; the sea, dancing to its own 
music, rolled merrily in ; crowds of 
people promenaded to and fro; young 
ladies tittered ; old ladies talked ; 
nurse-maids displayed, their charms to 
the greatest possible advantage ; and 
their little charges ran up and down, 
and to and fro, and in and out, under 
the feet, and between the legs, of the 
assembled concourse, in the most play- 
ful and exhilarating manner. There 
were old gentlemen, trying to make 
out objects through long telescopes ; 
and young ones, making objects of 
themselves in open shirt-collars ; 
ladies, carrying about portable chairs, 
and portable chairs carrying about in- 
valids; parties, waiting on the pier for 
parties who had come by the steam- 
boat ; and nothing was to be heard 
but talking, laughing, welcoming, and 
merriment. 

" Fly, sir ? " exclaimed a chorus of 
fourteen men and six boys, the mo- 
ment Mr. Joseph Tuggs, at the head 
of his little party, set foot in the 
street. 

" Here J s the gen'lm'n at last ! " 
said one, touching his hat with mock 
politeness. " Werry glad to see you, 
sir, — been a-waitin' for you these six 
weeks. Jump in, if you please, sir ! " 

" Nice light fly and a fast trotter, 



THE TUGGS'S AT RAMSGATE. 



209 



sir," said another : " fourteen mile a 
hour, and surroundin' objects rendered 
inwisible by ex-treme welocity ! " 

" Large fly for your luggage, sir," 
cried a third. " Werry large fly here, 
sir — reg'lar bluebottle ! " 

"Here's your fly, sir!" shouted 
another aspiring charioteer, mounting 
the box, and inducing an old gray 
horse to indulge in some imperfect 
reminiscences of a canter. " Look at 
him, sir ! — temper of a lamb and 
haction of a steam-ingein ! " 

Resisting even the temptation of 
securing the services of so valuable a 
quadruped as the last named, Mr. 
Joseph Tuggs beckoned to the pro- 
prietor of a dingy conveyance of a 
greenish hue, lined with faded striped 
calico; and, the luggage and the family 
having been deposited therein, the 
animal in the shafts, after describing 
circles in the road for a quarter of an 
hour, at last consented to depart in 
quest of lodgings. 

" How many beds have you got ? " 
screamed Mrs. Tuggs out of the fly, to 
the woman who opened the door of the 
first house which displayed a bill inti- 
mating that apartments were to be 
let within. 

" How many did you want, ma'am ?" 
was, of course, the reply. 

" Three." 

" Will you step in, ma'am 1 " Down 
got Mrs. Tuggs. The family were 
delighted. Splendid view of the sea 
from the front windows— charming ! 
A short pause. Back came Mrs. Tuggs 
again. — One parlour and a mattress. 

" Why the devil didn't they say so 
at first ! " inquired Mr. Joseph Tuggs, 
rather pettishly. 

" Don't know," said Mrs. Tuggs. 

" Wretches ! " exclaimed the ner- 
vous Cymon. Another bill — another 
stoppage. Same question — same answer 
— similar result. 

" What do they mean by this ? " 
inquired Mr. Joseph Tuggs, thoroughly 
out of temper. 

" Don't know," said the placid Mrs. 
Tuggs. 

" Or vis the vay here, sir," said the 
driver, by way of accounting for the 

No. 136. 3 



circumstance in a satisfactory manner ; 
and off they went again, to make fresh 
inquiries, and encounter fresh disap- 
pointments. 

It had grown dusk when the " fly " 
— the rate of whose progress greatly 
belied its name — after climbing up 
four or five perpendicular hills, stopped 
before the door of a dusty house, with 
a bay window, from which you could" 
obtain a beautiful glimpse of the sea — 
if you thrust half your body out of it, 
at the imminent peril of falling into 
the area. Mrs. Tuggs alighted. One 
ground-floor sitting-room, and three 
cells with beds in them up stairs. A 
double house. Family on the opposite 
side. Five children milk-and-watering 
in the parlour, and one little boy, ex- 
pelled for bad behaviour, screaming on 
his back in the passage. 

« What 's the terms ? " said Mrs. 
Tuggs. The mistress of the house was 
considering the expediency of putting 
on an extra guinea ; so, she coughed 
slightly, and affected not to hear 
the question. 

" What 's the terms ? " said Mrs. 
Tuggs, in a louder key. 

" Five guineas a week, ma'am, with 
attendance," replied the lodging-house 
keeper. (Attendance means the pri- 
vilege of ringing the bell as often as 
you like, for your own amusement.) 
" Rather dear," said Mrs. Tuggs. 
u Oh dear, no, ma'am ! " replied the 
mistress of the house, with a benign 
smile of pity at the ignorance of man- 
ners and customs, which the observa- 
tion betrayed. " Very cheap ! " 

Such an authority was indisputable. 
Mrs. Tuggs paid a week's rent in 
advance, and took the lodgings for a 
month. In an hour's time, the family 
were seated at tea in their new 
abode. 

" Capital srimps ! " said Mr. Joseph 
Tuggs. 

Mr. Cymon eyed his father with a 
rebellious scowl, as he emphatically 
said " Shrimps.'''' 

" Well then, shrimps," said Mr. 
Joseph Tuggs. " Srimps or shrimps, 
don't much matter." 

There was pity, blended with ma- 
il 



210 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



lignity, in Mr. Cymon's eye, as he 
replied, " Don't matter, father ! What 
would Captain Waters say, if he heard 
such vulgarity ? " 

" Or what would dear Mrs. Captain 
Waters say," added Charlotta, " if she 
saw mother — ma, I mean — eating 
them whole, heads and all ! " 

"It won't bear thinking of ! " ejacu- 
lated Mr. Cymon, with a shudder. 
" How different," he thought, " from 
the Dowager Duchess of Dobbleton ! " 

" Very pretty woman, Mrs. Captain 
Waters, is she not, Cymon 1 " inquired 
Miss Charlotta. 

A glow of nervous excitement 
passed over the countenance of Mr. 
Cymon Tuggs, as he replied, " An 
angel of beauty ! " 

" Hallo ! " said Mr. Joseph Tuggs, 
u Hallo, Cymon, my boy, take care. 
Married lady you know ; " and he 
winked one of his twinkling eyes 
knowingly. 

" Why," exclaimed Cymon, starting 
up with an ebullition of fury, as un- 
expected as alarming, " Why am I to 
be reminded of that blight of my hap- 
piness, and ruin of my hopes \ Why 
am I to be taunted with the miseries 
which are heaped upon my head ? Is 
it not enough to — to — to" and the 
orator paused ; but whether for want 
of words, or lack of breath, was never 
distinctly ascertained. 

There was an impressive solemnity 
in the tone of this address, and in the 
air with which the romantic Cymon, at 
its conclusion, rang the bell, and de- 
manded a flat candlestick, which 
effectually forbade a reply. He 
stalked dramatically to bed, and the 
Tuggs's went to bed too, half an hour 
afterwards, in a state of considerable 
mystification and perplexity. 

If the pier had presented a scene of 
life and bustle to the Tuggs's on their 
first landing at Ramsgate, it was far 
surpassed by the appearance of the 
sands on the morning after their 
arrival. It was a fine, bright, clear 
day, with a light breeze from the sea. 
There were the same ladies and gentle- 
men, the same children, the same 
nursemaids, the same telescopes, the 



same portable chairs. The ladies were 
employed in needlework, or watch- 
guard making, or knitting, or reading 
novels ; the gentlemen were reading 
newspapers and magazines ; the chil- 
dren were digging holes in the sand 
with wooden spades, and collecting 
water therein ; the nursemaids, with 
their youngest charges in their arms, 
were running in after the waves, and 
then running back with the waves 
after them ; and, now and then, a little 
sailing-boat either departed with a gay 
and talkative cargo of passengers, or 
returned with a very silent, and par- 
ticularly uncomfortable-looking one. 

" Well, I never ! " exclaimed Mrs. 
Tuggs, as she and Mr. Joseph Tuggs, 
and Miss Charlotta Tuggs, and Mr. 
Cymon Tuggs, with their eight feet in 
a corresponding number of yellow 
shoes, seated themselves on four rush- 
bottomed chairs, which, being placed 
in a soft part of the sand, forthwith 
sunk down some two feet and a half. — 
" Well, I never ! " 

Mr. Cymon, by an exertion of great 
personal strength, uprooted the chairs, 
and removed them further back. 

" Why, I' m bless'd if there ain't 
some ladies a-going in ! " exclaimed 
Mr. Joseph Tuggs, with intense asto- 
nishment. 

" Lor, pa ! " exclaimed Miss Char- 
lotta. 

"There is, my dear," said Mr. 
Joseph Tuggs, And, sure enough, 
four young ladies, each furnished with 
a towel, tripped up the steps of a 
bathing-machine. In went the horse, 
floundering about in the water ; round 
turned the machine ; down sat the 
driver ; and presently out burst the 
young ladies aforesaid, with four dis- 
tinct splashes. 

" Well, that's singler, too !" ejacu- 
lated Mr. Joseph Tuggs, after an 
awkward pause. Mr. Cymon coughed 
slightly. 

" Why, here 's some gentlemen 
a-going in on this side," exclaimed 
Mrs. Tuggs, in a tone of horror. 

Three machines — three horses — 
three fiounderings — three turnings 
round — three splashes — three gentle- 



THE TUGGS'S AT RAMSGATE. 



211 



men, disporting themselves in the 
water like so many dolphins. 

" Well, that 's sing'ler ! " said Mr. 
Joseph Tuggs again. Miss Charlotta 
coughed this time, and another pause 
ensued. It was agreeably broken. 

" How d' ye do, dear ? We have 
been looking for you, all the morn- 
ing," said a voice to Miss Charlotta 
Tuggs. Mrs. Captain Waters was the 
owner of it. 

" How d' ye do ? " said Captain 
Walter Waters, all suavity ; and a 
most cordial interchange of greetings 
ensued. 

" Belinda, my love," said Captain 
Walter Waters, applying his glass to 
his eye, and looking in the direction of 
the sea. 

" Yes, my dear," replied Mrs. Cap- 
tain Waters. 

" There 's Harry Thompson !" 

" Where ? " said Belinda, applying 
her glass to her eye. 

" Bathing." 

a Lor, so it is ! He don't see us, 
does he \ " 

" No, I don't think he does," replied 
the captain. " Bless my soul, how 
very singular ! " 

" What V inquired Belinda. 

" There 's Mary Golding, too." 

"Lor! — where?" (Up went the 
glass again.) 

" There ! " said the captain, pointing 
to one of the young ladies before 
noticed, who, in her bathing costume, 
looked as if she was enveloped in a 
patent Mackintosh, of scanty dimen- 
sions. 

* So it is, I declare ! " exclaimed 
Mrs. Captain Waters. " How very 
curious we should see them both ! " 

" Very," said the captain, with per- 
fect coolness. 

" It 's the reg'lar thing here, you 
see," whispered Mr. Cymon Tuggs to 
his father. 

" I see it is," whispered Mr. Joseph 
Tuggs in reply. " Queer though — ain't 
it ! " Mr. Cymon Tuggs nodded assent. 

" What do you think of doing with 
yourself this morning ? " inquired 
the captain. "Shall we lunch at 
Pe K \vell ? " 



" I should like that very much in- 
deed," interposed Mrs. Tuggs. She 
had never heard of Pegwell -; but the 
word "lunch" had reached her ears, 
and it sounded very agreeably. 

" How shall we go \ " inquired the 
captain ; " it 's too warm to walk." 

" A shay \ n suggested Mr. Joseph 
Tuggs. 

" Chaise," whispered Mr. Cymon. 

"I should think one would be 
enough," said Mr. Joseph Tuggs aloud, 
quite unconscious of the meaning of 
the correction. " However, two shays 
if you like." 

" I should like a donkey so much," 
said Belinda. 

" Oh, so should I ! " echoed Char- 
lotta Tuggs. 

" Well, we can have a fly," suggested 
the captain, "and you can have a 
couple of donkeys." 

A fresh difficulty arose. Mrs. Cap- 
tain Waters declared it would be 
decidedly improper for two ladies to 
ride alone. The remedy was obvious. 
Perhaps young Mr. Tuggs would be 
gallant enough to accompany them. 

Mr. Cymon Tuggs blushed, smiled, 
looked vacant, and faintly protested 
that he was no horseman. The objec- 
tion was at once overruled. A fly was 
speedily found ; and three donkeys — 
which the proprietor declared on his 
solemn asseveration to be " three parts 
blood, and the other corn" — were 
engaged in the service. 

" Kim up ! " shouted one of the two 
boys who followed behind, to propel 
the donkeys, when Belinda Waters 
and Charlotta Tuggs had been hoisted, 
and pushed, and pulled, into their 
respective saddles. 

" Hi — hi — hi ! " groaned the other 
boy behind Mr. Cymon Tuggs. Away 
went the donkey, with the stirrups 
jingling against the heels of Cymon's 
boots, and Cymon's boots nearly 
scraping the ground. 

" Way— way ! Wo — o— o— o— ! " 
cried Mr. Cymon Tuggs as well as he 
could, in the midst of the jolting. 

" Don't make it gallop ! " screamed 
Mrs. Captain Waters, behind. 

" My donkey will go into the public- 
p2 



212 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



house ! " shrieked Miss Tuggs ia the 
rear. 

" Hi — hi — hi ! " groaned hoth the 
boys together ; and on went the don- 
keys as if nothing would ever stop them. 
Everything has an end, however ; 
even the galloping of donkeys will 
cease in time. The animal which Mr. 
Cynion Tuggs bestrode, feeling sundry 
uncomfortable tugs at the bit, the 
intent of which he could by no means 
divine, abruptly sidled against a brick 
wall, and expressed his uneasiness by 
grinding Mr. Cvmon Tuggs's leg on 
the rough surface. Mrs. Captain 
Waters's donkey, apparently under 
the influence of some playfulness of 
spirit, rushed suddenly, head first, 
into a hedge, and declined to come 
out again : and the quadruped on 
which Miss Tuggs was mounted, ex- 
pressed his delight at this humorous 
proceeding by firmly planting his fore- 
feet against the ground, and kicking [ 
up his hind-legs in a very agile, but 
somewhat alarming manner. 

This abrupt termination to the ra- I 
pidity of the ride, naturally occasioned ; 
some confusion. Both the ladies in- 
dulged in vehement screaming for , 
several minutes ; and Mr. Cymon j 
Tuggs, besides sustaining intense | 
bodily pain, had the additional mental 
anguish of witnessing their distressing 
situation, without having the power to 
rescue them, by reason of his leg being 
firmly screwed in between the animal 
and the wall. The efforts of the boys, 
however, assisted by the ingenious 
expedient of twisting the tail of the 
most rebellious donkey, restored order 
in a much shorter time than could 
have reasonably been expected, and 
the little party jogged slowly on 
together. 

" Now let 'em walk," said Mr. 
Cymon Tuggs. " It 's cruel to over- 
drive 'em." 

" YVerry well, sir," replied the boy, 
with a grin at his companion, as if he 
understood Mr. Cymon to mean that 
the cruelly applied less to the animals 
than to their riders. 

" What a lovely day, dear ! " said 
Charlotta. 



" Charming ; enchanting, dear ! " 
responded Mrs. Captain Waters. 
" What a beautiful prospect, Mr. 
Tuggs ! " 

Cymon looked full in Belinda's 
face, as he responded — "Beautiful, 
indeed!" The lady cast down her 
eyes, and suffered the animal she was 
riding to fall a little back. Cymon 
Tuggs instinctively did the same. 

There was a brief silence, broken 

only by a sigh from Mr. Cymon Tuggs. 

" Mr. Cymon," said the lady sud- 

denlv, in a low tone, " Mr. Cymon — I 

am another s. 

Mr. Cymon expressed his perfect 
concurrence in a statement which it 
was impossible to controvert. 

" If I had not been — " resumed Be- 
linda ; and there she stopped. 

" What— what \ " said Mr. Cymon 
earnestly. " Do not torture me. What 
would you say \ " 

"If I had not been" — continued 
Mrs. Captain Waters — "if, in earlier 
life, it had been my fate to have known, 
and been beloved by, a noble youth — a 
kindred soul — a congenial spirit — one 
capable of feeling and appreciating 
the sentiments which — '' 

" Heavens ! what do I hear \ " ex- 
claimed Mr. Cymon Tuggs. "Is it 
possible ! can I believe my — Come 
up ! " ( This last unsentimental par- 
enthesis was addressed to the donkey, 
who with his head between his fore- 
legs, appeared to be examining the 
state of his shoes with great anxiety.) 
" Hi — hi — hi," said the boys behind. 
" Come up," expostulated Cymon 
Tuggs again. " Hi — hi — hi," repeated 
the boys. And whether it was that the 
animal felt indignant at the tone of 
Mr. Tuggs's command, or felt alarmed 
by the noise of the deputy proprietor's 
boots running behind him ; or whether 
he burned with a noble emulation to 
outstrip the other donkeys ; certain it 
is that he no sooner heard the second 
series of " hi — hi's," than he started 
away, with a celerity of pace which 
jerked Mr. Cymon's hat off, instanta- 
neously, and carried him to the Peg- 
well Bay hotel in no time, where he 
deposited his rider without giving him 



THE TUGGS'S AT RAMSGATE. 



213 



the trouble of dismounting, by saga- 
ciously pitching him over his head, 
into the very doorway of the tavern. 

Great was the confusion of Mr. 
Cymon Tuggs, when he was put, right 
end uppermost, by two waiters ; con- 
siderable was the alarm of Mrs. 
Tuggs in behalf of her son ; agonizing 
were the apprehensions of Mrs. Cap- 
tain Waters on his account. It was 
speedily discovered, however, that he 
had not sustained much more injury 
than the donkey — he was grazed, and 
the animal was grazing— and then it 
was a delightful party to be sure ! 
Mr. and Mrs. Tuggs, and the captain, 
had ordered lunch in the little gar- 
den behind : — small saucers of large 
shrimps, dabs of butter, crusty loaves, 
and bottled ale. The sky was without 
a cloud ; there were flower-pots and 
turf before them ; the sea, from the foot 
of the cliff, stretching away as far as 
the eye could discern anything at all ; 
vessels in the distance with sails as 
white, and as small, as nicely-got-up 
cambric handkerchiefs. The shrimps 
were delightful, the ale better, and 
the captain even more pleasant than 
either. Mrs. Captain Waters was in 
such spirits after lunch ! — chasing, first 
the captain across the turf, and among 
the flower-pots ; and then Mr. Cymon 
Tuggs ; and then Miss Tuggs ; and 
laughing, too, quite boisterously. But 
as the captain said, it didn't matter; 
•who knew what they were, there ? 
For all the people of the house knew, 
they might be common people. To 
which Mr. Joseph Tuggs responded, 
"To be sure." And then they went 
down the steep wooden steps a little 
further on, which led to the bottom 
of the cliff; and looked at the crabs, 
and the seaweed, and the eels, till it 
was more than fully time to go back 
to Ramsgate again. Finally, Mr. 
Cymon Tuggs ascended the steps last, 
and Mrs. Captain Waters last but 
one ; and Mr. Cymon Tuggs disco- 
vered that the foot and ancle of Mrs. 
Captain Waters, were even more un- 
exceptionable than he had at first sup- 
posed. 

Taking a donkey towards his ordi- 



nary place of residence, is a very dif- 
ferent thing, and a feat much more 
easily to be accomplished, than taking 
him from it. It requires a great deal 
of foresight and presence of mind in 
the one case, to anticipate the nume- 
rous flights of his discursive imagina- 
tion ; whereas, in the other, all you 
have to do, is, to hold on, and place a 
blind confidence in the animal. Mr. 
Cymon Tuggs adopted the latter expe- 
dient on his return ; and his nerves 
were so little discomposed by the , 
journey, that he distinctly understood 
they were all to meet again at the 
library in the evening. 

The library was crowded. There 
were the same ladies, and the same 
gentlemen, who had been on the sands 
in the morning, and on the pier the 
day before. There were young ladies, 
in maroon-coloured gowns and black 
velvet bracelets, dispensing fancy ar- 
ticles in the shop, and presiding over 
games of chance in the concert-room. 
Thei'e were marriageable daughters, 
and marriage-making mammas, gaming 
and promenading, and turning over 
music, and flirting. There were some 
male beaux doing the sentimental in 
whispers, and others doing the fero- 
cious in moustache. There were Mrs. 
Tuggs in amber, Miss Tuggs in sky- 
blue, Mrs. Captain Waters in pink, 
There was Captain Waters in a braided 
surtout ; there was Mr. Cymon Tuggs 
in pumps and a gilt waistcoat ; there 
was Mr. Joseph Tuggs in a blue coat, 
and a shirt-frill. 

" Numbers three, eight, and eleven!" 
cried one of the young ladies in the 
maroon-coloured gowns. 

" Numbers three, eight, and eleven !" 
echoed another young lady in the 
same uniform. 

" Number three 's gone, 1 ' said the 
first young lady. " Numbers eight and 
eleven ! " 

"Numbers eight and eleven!" echoed 
the second young lady. 

" Number eight 's gone, Mary Ann," 
said the first young lady. 

" Number eleven! " screamed the 
second. 

" The numbers are all taken now, 



214 



SKETCHES BY BOZ 



ladies, if you please," said the first. 
The representatives of numbers 
three, eight, and eleven, and the rest 
of the numbers, crowded round the 
table. 

"Will you throw, ma'am?" said 
the presiding goddess, handing the 
dice-box to the eldest daughter of a 
stout lady, with four girls. 

There was a profound silence among 
the lookers on. 

" Throw, Jane, my dear," said the 
stout lady. An interesting display of 
bashfuluess — a little blushing in a 
cambric handkerchief — a whispering 
to a younger sister. 

" Amelia, my dear, throw for your 
sister," said the stout lady ; and then 
she turned to a walking advertisement 
of Rowland's Macassar Oil, who stood 
next her, and said, " Jane is so very 
modest and retiring ; but I can't be 
angry with her for it. An artless and 
unsophisticated girl is so truly amiable, 
that I often wish Amelia was more like 
her sister ! " 

The gentleman with the whiskers, 
whispered his admiring approval. 

" Now, my dear ! " said the stout 
lady. Miss Amelia threw — eight for 
her sister, ten for herself. 

" Nice figure, Amelia," whispered 
the stout lady, to a thin youth beside 
her. 

" Beautiful ! " 

" And such a spirit ! I am like you 
in that respect. I can not help 
admiring that life and vivacity. 
Ah ! (a sigh) I wish I could make 
poor Jane a little more like my dear 
Amelia ! " 

The young gentleman cordially ac- 
quiesced in the sentiment ; both he, 
and the individual first addressed, 
were perfectly contented. 

" Who's this l " inquired Mr. Cymon 
Tuggs of Mrs. Captain Waters, as a 
short female, in a blue velvet hat and 
feathers, was led into the orchestra, by 
a fat man in black tights, and cloudy 
Berlins. 

" Mrs. Tippin, of the London 
theatres," replied Belinda, referring 
to the programme of the concert. 

The talented Tippin having conde- 



scendingly acknowledged the clapping 
of hands, and shouts of " bravo ! " 
which greeted her appearance pro- 
ceeded to sing the popular cavatina of 
" Bid me discourse," accompanied on 
the piano by Mr. Tippin ; after which, 
Mr. Tippin sang a comic song, accom- 
panied on the piano by Mrs. Tippin: the 
applause consequent upon which, was 
only to be exceeded by the enthusiastic 
approbation bestowed upon an air with 
variations on the guitar, by Miss 
Tippin, accompanied on the chin by 
Master Tippin. 

Thus passed the evening ; thus 
passed the days and evenings of the 
Tuggs's, and the Waters's, for six 
weeks. Sands in the morning — 
donkeys at noon — pier in the after- 
noon — library at night— and the same 
people everywhere. 

On that very night six weeks, the 
moon was shining brightly over the 
calm sea, which dashed against the 
feet of the tall gaunt cliffs, with just 
enough noise to lull the old fish to 
sleep, without disturbing the young 
ones, when two figures were discernible 
— or would have been, if anybody 
had looked for them — seated on one of 
the wooden benches which are sta- 
tioned near the verge of the western 
cliff. The moon had climbed higher 
into the heavens, by two hours' jour- 
neying, since those figures first sat 
down — and yet they had moved not. 
The crowd of loungers had thinned 
and dispersed ; the noise of itinerant 
musicians had died away ; light after 
light had appeared in the windows of 
the different houses in the distance; 
blockade-man after blockade-man had 
passed the spot, Avending his way to- 
wards his solitary post; and yet those 
figures had remained stationary. Some 
portions of the two forms were in deep 
shadow, but the light of the moon fell 
strongly on a puce-coloured boot and 
a glazed stock. Mr. Cymon Tuggs, 
and Mrs. Captain Waters, were seated 
on that bench. They spoke not, but 
were silently gazing on the sea. 

" Walter will return to-morrow," 
said Mrs. Captain Waters, mournfully 
breaking: silence. 



THE TUGGS'S AT RAM SG ATE. 



215 



Mr. Cymon Tuggs sighed like a gust 
of wind through a forest of gooseberry- 
bushes, as he replied, " Alas ! he will." 

" Oh, Cymon ! " resumed Belinda, 
"the chaste delight, the calm happi- 
ness, of this one week of Platonic love, 
is too much for me! " 

Cymon was about to suggest that it 
was too little for him, but he stopped 
himself, and murmured unintelligibly. 

" And to think that even this glimpse 
of happiness, innocent as it is," ex- 
claimed Belinda, "is now to be lost 
for ever ! " 

" Oh, do not say for ever, Belinda," 
exclaimed the excitable Cymon, as 
two strongly-defined tears chased each 
other down his pale face — it was so 
long that there was plenty of room for 
a chase — " Do not say for ever ! " 

" I must," replied Belinda. 

" Why 1 " urged Cymon, " oh why 1 
Such Platonic acquaintance as ours, is 
so harmless, that even your husband 
can never object to it." 

" My husband ! " exclaimed Belin- 
da. " You little know him. Jealous 
and revengeful ; ferocious in his re- 
venge — a maniac in his jealousy ! 
Would you be assassinated before my 
eyes \ " Mr. Cymon Tuggs, in a voice 
broken by emotion, expressed his dis- 
inclination to undergo the process of 
assassination before the eyes of any- 
body. 

" Then leave me," said Mrs. Captain 
Waters. " Leave me, this night, for 
ever. It is late ; let us return." 

Mr. Cymon Tuggs sadly offered the 
lady his arm, and escorted her to her 
lodgings. He paused at the door — he 
felt a Platonic pressure of his hand. 
" Good night," he said, hesitating. 

" Good night," sobbed the lady. 
Mr. Cymon Tuggs paused again. 

" Won't you walk in, sir ? " said the 
servant. Mr. Tuggs hesitated. Oh, 
that hesitation ! He did walk in. 

" Good night !" said Mr. Cymon 
Tuggs again, when he reached the 
drawing-room. 

" Good night ! " replied Belinda ; 
" and, if at any period of my life, I — 
Hush ! " The lady paused, and stared, 
with a steady gaze of horror, on the 



ashy countenance of Mr. Cymon Tuggs. 
There was a double knock at the 
street-door. 

" It is my husband ! " said Belinda, 
as the captain's voice was heard below. 

" And my family ! " added Cymon 
Tuggs, as the voices of his relatives 
floated up the staircase. 

" The curtain ! The curtain ! " 
gasped Mrs. Captain Waters, pointing 
to the window, before which some 
chintz hangings were closely drawn. 

" But I have done nothing wrong,", 
said the hesitating Cymon. 

" The curtain !" reiterated the fran- 
tic lady : " you will be murdered." 
This last appeal to his feelings was 
irresistible. The dismayed Cymon 
concealed himself behind the curtain, 
with pantomimic suddenness. 

Enter the captain, Joseph Tuggs, 
Mrs. Tuggs, and Charlotta. 

" My dear," said the captain, 
" Lieutenant Slaughter." Two iron- 
shod boots and one gruff voice were 
heard by Mr. Cymon to advance, and 
acknowledge the honour of the intro- 
duction. The sabre of the lieutenant 
rattled heavily upon the floor, as he 
seated himself at the table. Mr. 
Cymon's fears almost overcame his 
reason. 

" The brandy, my dear ! " said the 
captain. Here was a situation ! They 
were going to make a night of it ! 
And Mr. Cymon Tuggs was pent up 
behind the curtain and afraid to 
breathe ! 

" Slaughter," said the captain, " a 
cigar ?" 

Now, Mr. Cymon Tuggs never 
could smoke, without feeling it indis- 
pensably necessary to retire, imme- 
diately, and never could smell smoke 
without a strong disposition to cough. 
The cigars were introduced; the cap- 
tain was a professed smoker ; so was 
the lieutenaut ; so was Joseph Tuggs. 
The apartment was small, the door 
was closed, the smoke powerful: it 
hung in heavy wreathes over the room, 
and at length found its way behind the 
curtain. Cymon Tuggs held his nose, 
his mouth, his breath. It was all of 
no use — out came the cough. 



216 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



u Bless ray soul ! " said the captain, 
" I beg your pardon, Miss Tuggs. You 
dislike smoking I " 

" Oh, no ; I don't indeed," said 
Charlotta. 

" It makes you cough." 

" Oh dear no." 

" You coughed just now." 

" Me, Captain Waters ! Lor ! how 
can you say so \ " 

"Somebody coughed," said the 
captain. 

" I certainly thought so," said 
Slaughter. No; everybody denied it. 

" Fancy," said the captain. 

" Must be," echoed Slaughter. 

Cigars resumed — more smoke — 
another cough — smothered, but violent. 

'•Damned odd !" said the captain, 
staring about him. 

"Sing'ler !" ejaculated the uncon- 
scious Mr. Joseph Tuggs. 

Lieutenant Slaughter looked first at 
one person mysteriously, then at ano- 
ther ; then, laid down his cigar , then, 
approached the window on tiptoe, 
and pointed with his right thumb over 
his shoulder, in the direction of the 
curtain. 

"Slaughter !" ejaculated the cap- 
tain, rising from table, " what do you 
mean V 

The lieutenant, in reply, drew back 
the curtain and discovered Mr. Cymon 
Tuggs behind it; pallid with appre- 
hension, and blue with wanting to 
cough. 

" Aha !" exclaimed the captain, 
furiously, " What do I see \ Slaughter, 
vour sabre !" 



" Mercy !' J said Belinda. 

K Platonic !" gasped Cymon. 

"Your sabre!" roared the captain: 
'•' Slaughter — unhand me — the villain's 
life ! " 

"Murder!" screamed the Tuggs's. 

"Hold him fast, sir!" faintly arti- 
culated Cymon. 

"Water !" exclaimed Joseph Tuggs 
— and Mr. Cymon Tuggs and all the 
ladies forthwith fainted away, and 
formed a tableau. 

Most willingly would we conceal the 
disastrous termination of the six 
weeks' acquaintance. A troublesome 
form, and an arbitrary custom, how- 
ever, prescribe that a story should 
have a conclusion, in addition to a 
commencement ; we have therefore 
no alternative. Lieutenant Slaughter 
brought a message — the captain 
brought an action. Mr. Joseph Tuggs 
interposed — the lieutenant negociated. 
When Mr. Cymon Tuggs recovered 
from the nervous disorder into which 
misplaced affection, and exciting cir- 
cumstances, had plunged him, he 
found that his family had lost their 
pleasant acquaintance; that his father 
was minus fifteen hundred pounds ; 
and the captain plus the precise sum. 
The money was paid to hush the mat- 
ter up, but it got abroad notwithstand- 
ing; and there are not wanting some 
who affirm that three designing im- 
postors never found more easy dupes, 
than did Captain Waters, Mrs. 
Waters, and Lieutenant Slaughter, in 



HORATIO SPARKINS. 



217 



CHAPTER V. 



HORATIO SPARKINS. 



"Indeed, my love, he paid Teresa 
very great attention on the last as- 
sembly night," said Mrs. Malderton, 
addressing her spouse, who, after the 
fatigues of the day in the City, was 
sitting with a silk handkerchief over 
his head, and his feet on the fender, 
drinking his port ; — " very great at- 
tention ; and I say again, every possible 
encouragement ought to be given him. 
He positively must be asked down 
here to dine." 

" Who must % " inquired Mr. Mal- 
derton. 

" Why, you know whom I mean, 
my dear — the young man with the 
black whiskers and the white cravat, who 
has just come out at our assembly, 
and whom all the girls are talking 

about. Young dear me ! what's 

his name ? — Marianne, what is his 
name!" continued Mrs. Malderton, 
addressing her youngest daughter, 
who was engaged in netting a purse, 
and looking sentimental. 

" Mr. Horatio Sparkins, ma," re- 
plied Miss Marianne, with a sigh. 

" Oh ! yes, to be sure — Horatio 
Sparkins," said Mrs. Malderton. 
c: Decidedly the most gentleman-like 
young man I ever saw. I am sure, in 
the beautifully-made coat he wore 
the other night, he looked like- 
like " 

" Like Prince Leopold, ma — so 
noble, so full of sentiment ! " suggested 
Marianne, in a tone of enthusiastic 
admiration. 

" You should recollect, my dear," 
resumed Mrs. Malderton, "that 
Teresa is now eight-and-twenty; and 
that it really is very important that 
something should be done." 

Miss Teresa Malderton was a very 
little girl, rather fat, with vermillion 
cheeks, but good-humoured, and still 



disengaged, although to do her justice, 
the misfortune arose from no lack of 
perseverance on her part. In vain, 
had she flirted for ten years ; in vain f 
had Mr. and Mrs. Malderton assidu- 
ously kept up an extensive acquaint- 
ance among the young eligible 
bachelors of Camberwell, and even 
of Wandsworth and Brixton ; to say 
nothing of those who " dropped in" 
from town. Miss Malderton was as 
well known as the lion on the top of 
Northumberland House, and had an 
equal chance of " going off." 

" I am quite sure you 'd like him," 
continued Mrs. Malderton; "he is so 
gentlemanly !" 

" So clever ! " said Miss Marianne. 

" And has such a flow of language 1" 
added Miss Teresa. 

" He has a great respect for you, 
my dear," said Mrs. Malderton to her 
husband. Mr. Malderton coughed, and 
looked at the fire. 

"Yes, I 'm sure he 's very much at- 
tached to pa's society," said Miss 
Marianne. 

" No doubt of it," echoed Miss 
Teresa. 

" Indeed, he said as much to me in 
confidence," observed Mrs. Malderton. 

"Well, well," returned Mr. Mal- 
derton, somewhat flattered ; " if I see 
him at the assembly to-morrow, per- 
haps I '11 ask him down. I hope he 
knows we live at Oak Lodge, Camber- 
well, my dear \ " 

" Of course — and that you keep a 
one-horse carriage." 

"I'll see about it," said Mr. Mal- 
derton, composing himself for a nap ; 
" I '11 see about it." 

Mr. Malderton was a man whose 
whole scope of ideas was limited to 
Lloyd's, the Exchange, the India 
House, and the Bank. A few success- 



218 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



ful speculations had raised him from 
a situation of obscurity and compara- 
tive poverty, to a state of affluence. 
As frequently happens in such cases, 
the ideas of himself and his family 
became elevated to an extraordinary 
pitch as their means increased; they 
affected fashion, taste, and many other 
fooleries, in imitation of their betters, 
and had a very decided and becoming 
horror of anything which could, by 
possibility, be considered low. He was 
hospitable from ostentation, illiberal 
from ignorance, and prejudiced from 
conceit. Egotism and the love of dis- 
play induced him to keep an excellent 
table: convenience, and a love of good 
things of this life, ensured him plenty 
of guests. He liked to have clever 
men, or what he considered such, at 
his table, because it was a great thing 
to talk about ; but he never could 
endure what he called " sharp fellows." 
Probably, he cherished this feeling out 
of compliment to his two sons, who 
gave their respected parent no uneasi- 
ness in that particular. The family 
were ambitious of forming acquain- 
tances and connexions in some sphere 
of society superior to that in which 
they themselves moved ; and one of 
the necessary consequences of this 
desire, added to their utter ignorance 
of the world beyond their own small 
circle, was, that any one who could 
lay claim to an acquaintance with 
people of rank and title, had a sure 
passport to the table at Oak Lodge, 
Camberwell. 

The appearance of Mr. Horatio 
Sparkins at the assembly, had excited 
no small degree of surprise and curi- 
osity among its regular frequenters. 
Who could he be % He was evidently 
reserved, and apparently melancholy. 
Was he a clergyman ? — He danced too 
well. A barrister ? — he said he was not 
called. He used very fine words, and 
talked a great deal. Could he be a dis- 
tinguished foreigner, come to England 
for the purpose of describing the 
country, its manners and customs ; 
and frequenting public balls and public 
dinners, with the view of becoming 
acquainted with high life, polished eti- 



quette and English refinement ? — No, 
he had not a foreign accent. Was he 
a surgeon, a contributor to the maga- 
zines, a writer of fashionable novels, 
or an artist '? — No ; to each and all of 
these surmises, there existed some 
valid objection. — " Then," said every 
body, " he must be somebody" — " I 
should think he must be," reasoned 
Mr. Malderton, with himself, u because 
he perceives our superiority, and pays 
us so much attention." 

The night succeeding the conversa- 
tion we have just recorded, was " as- 
sembly night." The double-fiy was 
ordered to be at the door of Oak Lodge 
at nine o'clock precisely. The Miss 
Maldertons were dressed in sky-blue 
satin trimmed with artificial flowers ; 
and Mrs. M. (who was a little fat 
woman), in ditto ditto, looked like her 
eldest daughter multiplied by two. 
Mr. Frederick Malderton, the eldest 
son, in full-dress costume, was the 
very beau ideal of a smart waiter ; and 
Mr. Thomas Malderton, the youngest, 
with his white dress-stock, blue coat, 
bright buttons, and red watch-ribbon, 
strongly resembled the portrait of 
that interesting, but rash young 
gentleman, George Barnwell. Every 
member of the party had made 
up his or her mind to cultivate the 
acquaintance of Mr. Horatio Sparkins. 
Miss Teresa, of course, was to be as 
amiable and interesting as ladies of 
eight-and-twenty on the look-out for a 
husband, usually are. Mrs. Malderton 
would be all smiles and graces. Miss 
Marianne would request the favour of 
some verses for her album. Mr. Mal- 
derton would patronise the great un- 
known by asking him to dinner. 
Tom intended to ascertain the extent 
of his information on the interesting 
topics of snuff and cigars. Even 
Mr. Frederick Malderton himself, the 
family authority on all points of taste, 
dress, and fashionable arrangement ; 
who had lodgings of his own in town ; 
who had a free admission to Covent- 
garden theatre ; who always dressed 
according to the fashions of the 
months ; who went up the water twice 
a- week in the season; and who actually 



HORATIO SPAilKINS. 



219 



had an intimate friend who once knew 
a gentleman who formerly lived in the 
Albany, — even he had determined 
that Mr. Horatio Sparkins must be a 
devilish good fellow, and that he would 
do him the honour of challenging him 
to a game at billiards. 

The first object that met the anxious 
eyes of the expectant family on their 
entrance into the ball-room, was the 
interesting Horatio, with his hair 
brushed off his forehead, and his eyes 
fixed on the ceiling, reclining in a 
contemplative attitude on one of the 



whis- 
Mal- 



" There he is, my dear," 
pered Mrs. Malderton to Mr. 
derton. 

" How like Lord Byron ! " mur- 
mured Miss Teresa. 

" Or Montgomery ! " whispered 
Miss Marianne. 

" Or the portraits of Captain Cook !" 
suggested Tom. 

" Tom— don't be an ass ! " said his 
father, who checked him on all 
occasions, probably with a view to 
prevent his becoming " sharp" — which 
was very unnecessary. 

The elegant Sparkins attitudinised 
with admirable effect, until the family 
had crossed the room. He then 
started up, with the most natural ap- 
pearance of surprise and delight ; 
accosted Mrs. Malderton with the 
utmost cordiality ; saluted the young 
ladies in the most enchanting manner ; 
bowed to, and shook hands with, Mr. 
Malderton, with a degree of respect 
amounting almost to veneration ; and 
returned the greetings of the two 
young men in a half-gratified, half- 
patronising manner, which fully con- 
vinced them that he must be an im- 
portant, and, at the same time, con- 
descending personage. 

" Miss Malderton," said Horatio, 
after the ordinary salutations, and 
bowing very low, " may I be permitted 
to presume to hope that you will 
allow me to have the pleasure " 

" I don't iliinlc I am engaged," said 
Miss Teresa, with a dreadful affecta- 
tion of indifference — " but, really — so 
many " 



Horatio looked handsomely mise- 
rable. 

" I shall be most happy," simpered 
the interesting Teresa, at last. 
Horatio's countenance brightened 
up, like an old hat in a shower of 
rain. 

"A very genteel young man, cer- 
tainly ! " said the gratified Mr. Mal- 
derton, as the obsequious Sparkins and 
his partner joined the quadrille which 
was just forming. 

" He has a remarkably good address/' 
said Mr. Frederick. 

" Yes, he is a prime fellow," inter- 
posed Tom, who always managed to 
put his foot in it — " he talks just like 
an auctioneer." 

" Tom ! " said his father solemnly, 
" I think I desired you, before, not to 
be a fool." Tom looked as happy as 
a cock on a drizzly morning. 

" How delightful ! " said the inte- 
resting Horatio to his partner, as they 
promenaded the room at the conclusion 
of the set — "how delightful, how re- 
freshing it is, to retire from the cloudy 
storms, the vicissitudes, and the 
troubles, of life, even if it be but for a 
few short fleeting moments ; and to 
spend those moments, fading and 
evanescent though they be, in the 
delightful, the blessed, society, of one 
individual — whose frowns would 
be death, whose coldness would be 
madness, whose falsehood would be 
ruin, whose constancy would be 
bliss ; the possession of whose affec- 
tion would be the brightest and best 
reward that Heaven could bestow on 
man ! " 

" What feeling ! what sentiment ! " 
thought Miss Teresa, as she leaned 
more heavily on her companion's 
arm. 

" But enough— enough ! " resumed 
the elegant Sparkins, with a theatrical 
air. " "What have I said 1 what have 
I — I — to do with sentiments like 
these ! Miss Malderton — " here he 
stopped short — "may I hope to be 
permitted to offer the humble tribute 
of " 

" Really, Mr. Sparkins," returned 
the enraptured Teresa, blushing in the 



220 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



sweetest confusion, " I must refer you 
to papa. I never can, without his 
consent, venture to — " 

" Surely he cannot object — " 

"Oh, yes. Indeed, indeed, you 
know him not!" interrupted Miss 
Teresa, well knowing there was 
nothing to fear, but wishing to make 
the interview resemble a scene in 
some romantic novel. 

" He cannot object to my offering 
you a glass of negus," returned the 
adorable Spar kins, with some sur- 
prise. 

" Is that all ? " thought the disap- 
pointed Teresa. " What a fuss about 
nothing ! " 

" It will give me the greatest plea- 
sure, sir, to see you to dinner at Oak 
Lodge, Camberwell, on Sunday next 
at five o'clock, if you have no better 
engagement," said Mr. Malderton, at 
the conclusion of the evening, as he 
and his sons were standing in con- 
versation with Mr. Horatio Sparkins. 

Horatio bowed his acknowledgments, 
and accepted the flattering invita- 
tion. 

" I must confess," continued the 
father, offering his snuff-box to 
his new acquaintance. " that I 
don't enjoy these assemblies half so 
much as the comfort — I had almost 
said the luxury — of Oak Lodge. They 
have no great charms for an elderly 
man." 

" And after all, sir, what is man ? " 
said the metaphysical Sparkins. " I 
say, what is man ?" 

" Ah ! very true," said Mr. Mal- 
derton ; " very true." 

a We know that we live and breathe," 
continued Horatio ; " that we have 
wants and wishes, desires and appe- 
tites — " 

" Certainly," said Mr. Frederick 
Malderton, looking profound. 

" I say, we know that we exist," 
repeated Horatio, raising his voice, 
" but there we stop ; there, is an end 
to our knowledge ; there, is the sum- 
mit of our attainments ; there, is the 
termination of our ends. What more 
do we know ? " 

" Nothing," replied Mr. Frederick 



— than whom no one was more capa- 
ble of answering for himself in that 
particular. Tom was about to hazard 
something, but, fortunately for his 
reputation, he caught his father's 
angry eye, and slunk off like a puppy 
convicted of petty larceny. 

" Upon my word," said Mr. Malder- 
ton the elder, as they were returning 
home in the Fly, " that Mr. Sparkins 
is a wonderful young man. Such sur- 
prising knowledge ! such extraordinary 
information ! and such a splendid mode 
of expressing himself !" 

" I think he must be somebody in 
disguise," said Miss Marianne. " How 
charmingly romantic !" y 

" He talks very loud and nicely, 1 ' 
timidly observed Tom, " but I don't 
exactly understand what he means." 

" I almost begin to despair of your 
understanding anything, Tom," said his 
father, who, of course, had been much 
enlightened by Mr. Horatio Sparkins' 
conversation. 

"It strikes me, Tom," said Miss 
Teresa, u that you have made yourself 
very ridiculous this evening." 

" No doubt of it," cried everybody 
— and the unfortunate Tom reduced 
himself into the least possible space. 
That night, Mr. and Mrs. Malderton 
had a long conversation respecting 
their daughter's prospects and future 
arrangements. Miss Teresa went to 
bed, considering whether, in the event 
of her marrying a title, she could con- 
scientiously encourage the visits of her 
present associates ; and dreamed, all 
night, of disguised noblemen, large 
routs, ostrich plumes, bridal favours 
and Horatio Sparkins. 

Various surmises were hazarded on 
the Sunday morning, as to the mode 
of conveyance which the anxiously- 
expected Horatio would adopt. Did 
he keep a gig ? — was it possible he 
could come on horseback ? — or would 
he patronize the stage ? These, and 
various other conjectures of equal im- 
portance, engrossed the attention of 
Mrs. Malderton and her daughters 
during the whole morning after church. 

" Upon my word, my dear, it 's a 
most annoying thing that that vulgar 



HORATIO SPARKINS. 



221 



brother of yours should have invited 
himself to dine here to-day," said Mr. 
Malderton to his wife. " On account 
of Mr. Sparkins's coming down, I pur- 
posely abstained from asking anyone 
but Flam well. And then to think of 
your brother— a tradesman— it 's in- 
sufferable ! I declare I wouldn't have 
him mention his shop, before cur new 
guest — no, not for a thousand 
pounds ! I wouldn't care if he had the 
good sense to conceal the disgrace 
he is to the family ; but he 's so 
fond of his horrible business, that he 
will let people know what he is." 

Mr. Jacob Barton, the individual 
alluded to, was a large grocer ; so 
vulgar, and so lost to all sense of feel- 
ing, that he actually never scrupled to 
avow that he wasn't above his business: 
" he 'd made his money by it, and he 
didn't care who know'd it." 

" Ah ! Flamwell, my dear fellow, 
how d 'ye do 2 " said Mr. Malderton, as 
a little spoffish man, with green spec- 
tacles, entered the room. " You got 
my note ?" 

" Yes, I did ; and here I am in con- 
sequence." 

" You don't happen to know this 
Mr. Sparkins by name % You know 
everybody ?" 

Mr. Flamwell was one of those 
gentlemen of remarkably extensive 
information whom one occasionally 
meets in society, who pretend to know 
everybody, but in reality know no- 
body. At Malderton's, where any 
stories about great people were re- 
ceived with a greedy ear, he was an 
especial favourite ; and, knowing the 
kind of people he had to deal with, 
he carried his passion of claiming 
acquaintance with everybody, to the 
most immoderate length. He had 
rather a singular way of telling his 
greatest lies in a parenthesis, and with 
an air of self-denial, as if he feared 
being thought egotistical. 

" Why, no, 1 don 't know him by 
that name," returned Flamwell, in a 
low tone, and with an air of immense 
importance. " I have no doubt I know 
him, though. Is he tall V 

" Middle sized," said Miss Teresa. 



" With black hair 1" inquired Flam- 
well, hazarding a bold guess. 

" Yes," returned Miss Teresa, 
eagerly. 

" Rather a snub nose ?" 

" No," said the disappointed Teresa, 
" he has a Roman nose." 

" I said a Roman nose, didn't I ?" 
inquired Flamwell. " He's an elegant 
young man ?" 

" Oh, certainly.'' 

'- With remarkably prepossessing 
manners ?" 

" Oh> yes l" said al! the family to- 
gether. " You must know him." 

"Yes, I thought you knew him, if 
he was r.ybody," triumphantly ex- 
claimed Mr. Malderton. " Who d 'ye 
think he is ? " 

" Why, from your description," said 
Flamwell, ruminating, and sinking his 
voice, almost to a whisper, " he bears 
a strong resemblance to the Honour- 
able Augustus Fitz-Edward Fitz-John 
Fitz-Osborne. He's a very talented 
young man, and rather eccentric. 
It 's extremely probable he may have 
changed his name for some temporary 
purpose." 

Teresa's heart beat high. Could he 
be the Honourable Augustus Fitz- 
Edward Fitz-John Fitz-Osborne ! 
What a name to be elegantly engraved 
upon two glazed cards, tied together 
with a piece of white satin ribbon ! 
" The Honourable Mi's. Augustus Fitz- 
Edward Fitz-John Fitz-Osborne !" 
The thought was transport. 

" It 's five minutes to five," said Mr. 
Malderton, looking at his watch : " I 
hope he 's not going to disappoint 
us." 

" There he is !" exclaimed Miss 
Teresa, as a loud double-knock was 
heard at the door. Everybody en- 
deavoured to look — as people when 
they particularly expect a visitor 
always do — as if they were perfectly 
unsuspicious of the approach of any- 
body. 

The room-door opened — " Mr. 
Barton !" said the servant. 

" Confound the man !" murmured 
Malderton. " Ah ! my dear sir, how 
d 'ye do ! Any news V 



222 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



" Why no," returned the grocer, 
in his usual bluff manner. " No, 
none partickler. None that I am 
much aware of. How d'ye do, gals 
and boys ? Mr. Flam well, sir — glad 
to see you." 

" Here 's Mr. Sparkins ! " said Tom, 
who had been looking out at the 
window, " on such a black horse !" 
There was Horatio, sure enough, 
on a large black horse, curvetting 
and prancing along, like an Astley's 
supernumerary. After a great deal 
of reining in, and pulling up, with 
the accompaniments of snorting, 
rearing, and kicking, the animal con- 
sented to stop at about a hundred 
yards from the gate, where Mr. 
Sparkins dismounted, and confided 
him to the care of Mr. Malderton's 
groom. The ceremony of introduc- 
tion was gone through, in all due form. 
Mr. Flamwell looked from behind his 
green spectacles at Horatio with an 
air of mysterious importance ; and 
the gallant Horatio looked unutter- 
able things at Teresa. 

" Is he the Honourable Mr. Augus- 
tus what "s his name *" whispered 
Mrs. Malderton to Flamwell, as 
he was escorting her to the dining- 
room. 

" Why, no — at least not exactly," 
returned that great authority — "not 
exactly." 

" Who is he then ?" 

u Hush !" said Flamwell, nodding 
his head with a grave air, importing 
that he knew very well ; but was pre- 
vented, by some grave reasons of state, 
from disclosing the important secret. 
It might be one of the ministers mak- 
ing himself acquainted with the views 
of the people. 

" Mr. Sparkins," said the delighted 
Mrs. Malderton, "pray divide the 
ladies. John, put a chair for the 
gentleman between Miss Teresa and 
Miss Marianne." This was addressed 
to a man who, on ordinary occasions, 
acted as half-groom, half-gardener ; 
but who, as it was important to 
make an impression on Mr. Spar- 
kins, had been forced into a white 
neckerchief and shoes, and touched 



up, and brushed, to look like a second 
footman. 

The dinner was excellent ; Horatio 
was most attentive to Miss Teresa, and 
everyone felt in high spirits, except 
Mr. Malderton, who, knowing the pro- 
I pensity of his brother-in-law, Mr. Bar- 
! ton, endured that sort of agony which 
; the newspapers inform us is expe- 
' rienced by the surrounding neigh- 
bourhood when a pot-boy hangs 
I himself in a hay-loft, and which is 
"much easier to be imagined than 
; described." 

' f Have you seen your friend, Sir 

Thomas Noland, lately, Flamwell \ " 

inquired Mr. Malderton, casting a side- 

i long look at Horatio, to see what effect 

■ the mention of so great a man had 
upon him. 

'■' Why, no — not very lately. I saw 
! Lord Gubbleton the dav before vester- 
j day." 

" Ah ! I hope his lordship is very 
well ? " said Malderton, in a tone of the 
: greatest interest. It is scarcely neces- 
I sary to say that, until that moment, he 
1 had been quite innocent of the exist- 
ence of such a person. 

" Why, yes ; he was very well — 

very well indeed. He 5 s a devilish 

good fellow. I met him in the City, 

and had a long chat with'him. Indeed, 

I "ni rather intimate with him. I 

I couldn't stop to talk to him as long as 

I could wish, though, because I was on 

j my way to a bankers a very rich man, 

i and a member of Parliament, with 

i whom I am also rather, indeed I may 

say very, intimate." 

| "I know whom you mean," returned 

■ the host, consequentially — in reality 
knowing as much about the matter as 
Flamwell himself. " He has a capital 
business." 

This was touching on a dangerous 
topic . 

" Talking of business," interposed 
Mr. Barton, from the centre of the 
table. " A gentleman whom you knew 
very well, Malderton, before you made 
that first lucky spec of yours, called at 
[ our shop the other day, and — " 

" Barton, may I trouble you for a 
i potato," interrupted the wretched 



HORATIO SPARKINS. 



223 



master of the house, hoping to nip the 
story in the bud. 

"Certainly," returned the grocer, 
quite insensible of his brother-in-law's 
object — " and he said in a very plain 
manner " 

" Floury, if you please," interrupted 
Malderton again ; dreading the ter- 
mination of the anecdote, and fearing 
a repetition of the word " shop." 

" He said, says he," continued the 
culprit, after despatching the potato ; 
" says he, how goes on your business ? 
So I said, jokingly — you know my way 
— says I, I 'm never above my business, 
and I hope my business will never be 
above me. Ha, ha ! " 

" Mr. Sparkins," said the host, 
vainly endeavouring to conceal his 
dismay, " a glass of wine % " 

" With the utmost pleasure, sir." 

" Happy to see you." 

" Thank you." 

" We were talking the other even- 
ing." resumed the host, addressing 
Horatio, partly with the view of dis- 
playing the conversational powers of 
his new acquaintance, and partly in the 
hope of drowning the grocer's stories — 
'• we were talking the other night about 
the nature of man. Your argument 
struck me very forcibly." 

" And me," said Mr. Frederick. 
Horatio made a graceful inclination of 
the head. 

" Pray, what is your opinion of 
woman, Mr. Sparkins \ " inquired 
Mrs. Malderton. The young ladies 
simpered. 

" Man," replied Horatio, " man, 
whether he ranged the bright, gay, 
flowery plains of a second Eden, or 
the more sterile, barren, and I may 
say, common-place regions, to which 
we are compelled to accustom our- 
selves, in times such as these ; man, 
under any circumstances, or in any 
place — whether he were bending be- 
neath the withering blasts of the 
frigid zone, or scorching under the 
rays of a vertical sun — man, without 
woman, would be — alone." 

" I am very happy to find you enter- 
tain such honourable opinions, Mr. 
Sparkins," said Mrs. Malderton. 



" And I," added Miss Teresa. Ho- 
ratio looked his delight, and the young 
lady blushed. 

" Now, it 's my opinion," said Mr. 
Barton 

" I know what you 're going to say," 
interposed Malderton, determined not 
to give his relation another oppor- 
tunity, " and I don't agree with 
you." 

" What % " inquired the astonished 
grocer. 

" I am sorry to differ from you, . 
Barton," said the host, in as positive a 
manner as if he really were contradict- 
ing a position which the other had laid 
down, " but I cannot give my assent to 
what I consider a very monstrous pro- 
position." 

" But I meant to say — " 

" You never can convince me," said 
Malderton, with an air of obstinate 
determination. " Never." 

'" And I," said Mr. Frederick, fol- 
lowing up his father's attack, " cannot 
entirely agree in Mr. Sparkins's argu- 
ment." 

" What ! " said Horatio, who be- 
came more metaphysical, and more 
argumentative, as he saw the female 
part of the family listening in wonder- 
ing delight — " what ! Is effect the 
consequence of cause % Is cause the 
precursor of effect % " 

" That 's the point," said Flamwell. 

" To be sure," said Mr. Malderton. 

" Because, if effect is the conse- 
quence of cause, and if cause does 
precede effect, I apprehend you are 
wrong," added Horatio. 

" Decidedly," said the toad-eating 
Flamwell. 

" At least, I apprehend that to 
be the just and logical deduction ? " 
said Sparkins, in a tone of inter- 
rogation. 

" No doubt of it," chimed in Flam- 
well again. " It settles the point." 

" Well, perhaps it does," said Mr. 
Frederick ; " I didn't see it before." 

" I don't exactly see it now," thought 
the grocer ; " but I suppose it 's all 
right." 

" How wonderfully clever he is ! " 
whispered Mrs. Malderton to her 



224 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



daughters, as they retired to the 
drawing-room. 

" Oh, he 's quite a love ! " said both 
the young ladies together ; " he talks 
like an oracle. He must have seen a 
great deal of life ! " 

The gentlemen being left to them- 
selves, a pause ensued, during which 
everybody looked very grave, as if they 
were quite overcome by the profound 
nature of the previous discussion. 
Flamwell, who had made up his 
mind to find out who and what Mr. 
Horatio Sparkins really was, first 
broke silence. 

" Excuse me, sir," said that distin- 
guished personage, K I presume you 
have studied for the bar ? I thought 
of entering once, myself — indeed, I 'm 
rather intimate with some of the high- 
est ornaments of that distinguished 
profession." 

" N — no ! " said Horatio, with a 
little hesitation ; " not exactly." 

" But you have been much among 
the silk gowns, or I mistake I " inquired 
Flamwell, deferentially. 

" Nearly all my life," returned Spar- 
kins. 

The question was thus pretty well 
settled iu the mind of Mr. Flamwell. 
He was a young gentleman " about to 
be called." 

" I shouldn't like to be a barrister/' 
said Tom, speaking for the first time, 
and looking round the table to find I 
somebody who would notice the remark. ' 

No one made any reply. 

"I shouldn't like to wear a wig," 
said Tom, hazarding another obser- 
vation. 

" Tom, I beg you will not make your- 
self ridiculous," said his father. " Pray 
listen, and improve yourself by the con- 
versation you hear, and don't be con- 
stantly making these absurd remarks." 

"Very well, father," replied the 
unfortunate Tom, who had not spoken 
a word since he had asked for another 
slice of beef at a quarter-past five 
o'clock, p. M., and it was then eight. 

" Well, Tom," observed his good- 
natured uncle, " never mind ! / think 
with you. / shouldn't like to wear a 
wig. I 'd rather wear an apron." 



Mr. Malderton coughed violently. 
Mr. Barton resumed — " For if a man 's 
above his business — " 

The cough returned with ten-fold 
violence, and did not cease until the 
unfortunate cause of it, in his alarm, 
had quite forgotten what he intended 
to say. 

"Mr. Sparkins," said Flamwell, 
returning to the charge, " do you 
happen to know Mr. Delafontaine, of 
Bedford-square ? " 

" I have exchanged cards with him ; 
since which, indeed, I have had an 
opportunity of serving him considera- 
bly," replied Horatio, slightly colour- 
ing ; no doubt, at having been betrayed 
into making the acknowledgment. 

" You are very lucky, if you have 
had an opportunity of obliging that 
great man," observed Flamwell, with 
an air of profound respect. 

"I don't know who he is," he whis- 
pered to Mr. Malderton, confidentially, 
as they followed Horatio up to the 
drawing-room. "It's quite clear, 
however, that he belongs to the law, 
and that he is somebody of great 
importance, and very highly con- 
nected." 

" No doubt, no doubt," returned his 
companion. 

The remainder of the evening passed 
away most delightfully. Mr. Malder- 
ton, relieved from his apprehensions 
by the circumstance of Mr. Barton's 
falling into a profound sleep, was as 
affable and gracious as possible. Miss 
Teresa played the " Fall of Paris," as 
Mr. Sparkins declared, in a most 
masterly manner, and both of them, 
assisted by Mr. Frederick, tried over 
glees and trios without number ; they 
having made the pleasing discovery 
that their voices harmonised beauti- 
fully. To be sure, they all sang the 
first part ; and Horatio, in addition to 
the slight drawback of having no ear, 
was perfectly innocent of knowing a 
note of music ; still, they passed the 
time very agreeably, and it was past 
twelve o'clock before Mr. Sparkins 
ordered the mourning-coach-looking 
steed to be brought out — an order 
which was only complied with, on 



HORATIO SPARKINS. 



225 



the distinct understanding that he was 
to repeat his visit on the following 
Sunday. 

"But, perhaps, Mr. Sparkins will 
form one of our party to-morrow 
evening ? " suggested Mrs. M. " Mr. 
Maiderton intends taking the girls to 
see the pantomine." Mr. Sparkins 
bowed, and promised to join the party 
in box 48, in the course of the 
evening. 

" We will not tax you for the morn- 
ing," said Miss Teresa, bewitchingly ; 
"for ma is going to take us to all 
sorts of places, shopping. I know that 
gentlemen have a great horror of that 
employment." Mr. Sparkins bowed 
Again, and declared that he should 
be delighted, but business of import- 
ance occupied him in the morning. 
Flamwell looked at Maiderton sig- 
nificantly. — " It 's term time ! " he 
whispered. 

At twelve o'clock on the following 
morning, the "fly" was at the door 
of Oak Lodge, to convey Mrs. Maider- 
ton and her daughters on their expe- 
dition for the day. They were to dine 
and dress for the play at a friend's 
house. First, driving thither with their 
band-boxes, they departed on their 
first errand to make some purchases at 
Messrs. Jones, Spruggins, and Smith's,' 
of Tottenham-court-road ; after which, 
they were to go to Redmayne's in 
Bond-street ; thence, to innumerable 
places that no one ever heard of. 
The young ladies beguiled the tedious- 
ness of the ride by eulogising Mr. 
Horatio Sparkins, scolding their mam- 
ma for taking them so far to save a 
shilling, and wondering whether they 
should ever reach their destination. 
At length, the vehicle stopped before a 
dirty-looking ticketed linen-draper's 
shop, with goods of all kinds, and 
labels of all sorts and sizes, in the 
window. There were dropsical figures 
of seven with a little three-farthings 
in the corner ; " perfectly invisible 
to the naked eye ; " three hundred 
and fifty thousand ladies' boas, from 
one shilling and a penny half-penny ; 
real French kid shoes, at two and 
ninepence per pair ; green parasols, 

No. 187. q 



at an equally cheap rate ; and 
" eveiy description of goods," as the 
proprietors said — and they must know 
best — " fifty per cent under cost- 
price." 

" Lor ! ma, what a place you have 
brought us to ! " said Miss Teresa ; 
" what would Mr. Sparkins say if he 
could see us !" 

" Ah ! what, indeed ! " said Miss 
Marianne, horrified at the idea. 

" Pray be seated, ladies. What is 
the first article ? " inquired the obse- 
quious master of the ceremonies of the 
establishment, who, in his large white 
neckcloth and formal tie, looked like a 
bad " portrait of a gentleman " in the 
Somerset-house exhibition. 

" I want to see some silks," answered 
Mrs. Maiderton. 

" Directly, ma'am. — Mr. Smith ! 
Where is Mr. Smith % " 

" Here, sir," cried a voice at the 
back of the shop. 

"Pray make haste, Mr. Smith," 
said the M.C. " You never are to be 
found when you 're wanted, sir." 

Mr. Smith, thus enjoined to use all 
possible dispatch, leaped over the 
counter with great agility, and placed 
himself before the newly-arrived cus- 
tomers. Mrs. Maiderton uttered a 
faint scream ; Miss Teresa, who had 
been stooping down to talk to her 
sister, raised her head, and beheld — 
Horatio Sparkins ! 

"We will draw a veil," as novel 
writers say, over the scene that ensued. 
The mysterious, philosophical, roman- 
tic, metaphysical Sparkins — he who, 
to the interesting Teresa, seemed like 
the embodied idea of the young dukes 
and poetical exquisites in blue silk 
dressing-gowns, and ditto ditto slippers, 
of whom she had read and dreamed, 
but had never expected to behold, 
was suddenly converted into Mr. 
Samuel Smith, the assistant at a 
"cheap shop ; " the junior partner in 
a slippery firm of some three weeks' 
existence. The dignified evanishment 
of the hero of Oak Lodge, on this 
unexpected recognition, could only be 
equalled by that of a furtive dog with 
a considerable kettle at his tail. All 
15 



226 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



the hopes of the Maldertons were 
destined at once to melt away, like the 
lemon ices at a Company's dinner ; 
Almacks was still to them as distant 
as the North Pole ; and Miss Teresa 
had as much chance of a husband as 
Captain Ross had, of the north-west 
passage. 

Years have elapsed since the occur- 
rence of this dreadful morning. The 
daisies have thrice bloomed on Cam- 



berw ell -green ; the sparrows have 
thrice repeated their vernal chirps in 
Camberwell-grove ; but the Miss 
Maldertons are still unmated. Miss 
Teresa's case is more desperate 
than ever ; but Flamwell is yet 
in the zenith of his reputation m y 
and the family have the same pre- 
dilection for aristocratic personages, 
with an increased aversion to any- 
thing: loiv. 



THE BLACK VEIL. 



227 



CHAPTER Y 



THE BLACK VEIL. 



One winter's evening,, towards the 
close of the year 1800, or within a 
year or two of that time, a young 
medical practitioner, recently estab- 
lished in business, was seated by a 
cheerful fire in his little parlour, listen- 
ing to the wind which was beating the 
rain in pattering drops against the 
window, and rumbling dismally hi the 
chimney. The night was wet and 
cold; he had been walking through mud 
and water the whole day, and was now 
comfortably reposing in his dressing- 
gown and slippers, more than half 
asleep and less than half awake, re- 
volving a thousand matters in his 
wandering imagination. First, he 
thought how hard the wind was blow- 
ing, and how the cold, sharp rain 
would be at that moment beating in 
his face, if he were not comfortably 
housed at home. Then, his mind re- 
verted to his annual Christmas visit 
to his native place and dearest friends ; 
he thought how glad they would all be 
to see him, and how happy it would 
make Rose if he could only tell her 
that he had found a patient at last, and 
hoped to have more, and to come down 
again, in a few months' time, and marry 
her, and take her home to gladden his 
lonely fireside, and stimulate him to 
fresh exertions. Then, he began to 
wonder when his first patient would 
appear, or whether he was destined, 
by a special dispensation of Provi- 
dence, never to have any patients at 
all ; and then, he thought about Rose 
again, and dropped to sleep and 
dreamed about her, till the tones 
of her sweet merry voice sounded in 
his ears, and her soft tiny hand rested 
on his shoulder. 

There was a hand upon his shoulder, 
but it was neither soft nor tiny ; its 
owner being a corpulent round-headed 
boy, who, in consideration of the sum 
of one shilling per week and his food, 



was let out by the parish to carry 
medicine and messages. As there was 
no demand for the medicine, however, 
and no necessity for the messages, he 
usually occupied his unemployed hours 
— averaging fourteen a day — in ab- 
stracting peppermint drops, talcing 
animal nourishment, and going to sleep. 

" A lad}-, sir — a lady 1 " whispered, 
the boy, rousing his master with a 
shake. 

" What lady 2 " cried our friend, 
starting up, not quite certain that his 
dream was an illusion, and half ex- 
pecting that it might be Rose herself. 
—"What lady? Where?" 

" There, sir !" replied the boy, point- 
ing to the glass door leading into the 
surgery, with an expression of alarm 
which the very unusual apparition of 
a customer might have tended to 
excite. 

The surgeon looked towards the 
door, and started himself, for an instant, 
on beholding the appearance of his 
unlooked-for visitor. 

It was a singularly tall woman, 
dressed in deep mourning, and stand- 
ing so close to the door that her face 
almost touched the glass. The upper 
part of her figure was carefully muf- 
fled in a black shawl, as if lor the 
purpose of concealment; and her face 
was shrouded by a thick black veil. 
She stood perfectly erect ; her figure 
was drawn up to its full height, and 
though the surgeon felt that the eyes 
beneath the veil were fixed on him, 
she stood perfectly motionless, and 
evinced, by no gesture whatever, the 
slightest consciousness of his having 
turned towards her. 

" Do you wish to consult me ? " he 
inquired, with some hesitation, holding 
open the door. It opened inwards, 
and therefore the action did not alter 
the position of the figure, which still 
remained motionless on the same spot. 
Q2 



228 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



She slightly inclined her head, in 
token of acquiescence. 

K Pray walk in," said the surgeon. 

The figure moved a step forward ; 
and then, turning its head in the 
direction of the boy — to his infinite 
horror — appeared to hesitate. 

" Leave the room, Tom," said the 
young man, addressing the boy, whose 
large round eyes had been extended 
to their utmost Avidth during this 
brief interview. " Draw the curtain, 
and shut the door." 

The boy drew a green curtain across 
the glass part of the door, retired into 
the surgery, closed the door after him, 
and immediately applied one of his large 
eyes to the keyhole on the other side. 

The surgeon drew a chair to the 
fire, and motioned the visitor to a seat. 
The mysterious figure slowly moved 
towards it. As the blaze shone upon 
the black dress, the surgeon observed 
that the bottom of it was saturated 
with mud and rain. 

" You are very wet," he said. 

" I am," said the stranger, in a low 
deep voice. 

" And you are ill ? " added the sur- 
geon, compassionately, for the tone 
was that of a person in pain. 

" I am," was the reply — " very ill : 
not bodily, but mentally. It is not 
for myself, or on my own behalf," con- 
tinued the stranger, " that I come to 
you. If I laboured under bodily dis- 
ease, I should not be out, alone, at such 
an hour, or on such a night as this ; 
and if I were afflicted with it, twenty 
four hours hence, God knows how 
gladly I would lie down and pray to die. 
It is for another that I beseech your aid, 
sir. I may be mad to ask it for him 
■ — I think I am ; but, night after night 
through the long dreary hours of 
watching and weeping, the thought 
has been ever present to my mind ; 
and though even / see the hopeless- 
ness of human assistance availing him, 
the bare thought of laying him in his 
grave without it, makes my blood run 
cold ! " And a shudder, such as the 
surgeon well knew art could not pro- 
duce, trembled through the speaker's 
frame. 



There was a desperate earnestness 
in this woman's manner, that went to 
the young man's heart. He was young 
in his profession, and had not yet wit- 
nessed enough of the miseries which 
are daily presented before the eyes 
of its members, to have grown com- 
pai'atively callous to human suffering. 

"If," he said, rising hastily, "the 
person of whom you speak, be in so 
hopeless a condition as you describe, 
not a moment is to be lost. I will go 
with you instantly. Why did you not 
obtain medical advice before ? " 

" Because it would have been use- 
less before — because it is useless even 
now," replied the woman, clasping her 
hands passionately. 

The surgeon gazed, for a moment, on 
the black veil, as if to ascertain the 
expression of the features beneath it ; 
its thickness, however, rendered such 
a result impossible. 

" You are ill," he said, gently, 
" although you do not know it. The 
fever which has enabled you to bear, 
without feeling it, the fatigue you have 
evidently undergone, is burning within 
you now. Put that to your lips," he 
continued, pouring out a glass of 
water — " compose yourself for a few 
moments, and then tell me, as calmly 
as you can, what the disease of the 
patient is, and how long he has been 
ill. When I know what it is neces- 
sary I should know, to render my visit 
serviceable to him, I am ready to ac- 
company you." 

The stranger lifted the glass of 
water to her mouth, without raising 
the veil ; put it down again untasted ; 
and burst into tears. 

" I know," she said, sobbing aloud, 
u that what I say to you now, seems 
like the ravings of fever. I have been 
told so before, less kindly than by you. 
I am not a young woman ; and they 
do say, that as life steals on towards 
its final close, the last short remnant, 
worthless as it may seem to all beside, 
is dearer to its possessor than all the 
years that have gone before, connected 
though they be with the recollection 
of old friends long since dead, and 
young ones — children perhaps — who 



THE BLACK VEIL. 



229 



have fallen off from, and forgotten one 
as completely as if they had died too. 
My natural term of life cannot be 
many years longer, and should be 
dear on that account ; but I would lay 
it down without a sigh — with cheerful- 
ness — with joy — if what I tell you 
now, were only false, or imaginary. 
To-morrow morning he of whom I 
speak will be, I know, though I would 
fain think otherwise, beyond the reach 
of human aid ; and yet, to-night, 
though he is in deadly peril, you 
must not see, and could not serve, 
him." 

" I am unwilling to increase your 
distress," said the surgeon, after a 
short pause, " by making any comment 
on what you have just said, or appear- 
ing desirous to investigate a subject 
you are so anxious to conceal ; but 
there is an inconsistency in your state- 
ment which I cannot reconcile with 
probability. This person is dying to- 
night, and I cannot see him when my 
assistance might possibly avail ; you 
apprehend it will be useless to-morrow, 
and yet you would have me see him 
then ! If he be, indeed, as dear to you, 
as your words and manner would 
imply, why not try to save his life 
before delay and the progress of his 
disease render it impracticable \ " 

" God help me ! " exclaimed the 
woman, weeping bitterly, " how can I 
hope strangers will believe what appears 
incredible, even to myself ? You will 
not see him then, sir % " she added, 
l'ising suddenly. 

" I did not say that I declined to see 
him," replied the surgeon ; " but I 
warn you, that if you persist in this 
extraordinary procrastination, and the 
individual dies, a fearful responsibility 
rests with you." 

" The responsibility will rest heavily 
somewhere," replied the stranger bit- 
terly. " Whatever responsibility rests 
with me, I am content to bear, and 
ready to answer." 

"As I incur none," continued the 
surgeon, " by acceding to your request, 
I will see him in the morning, if you 
leave me the address. At what hour 
can he be seen \ " 



" Nine" replied the stranger. 

" You must excuse my pressing 
these inquiries," said the" surgeon. 
" But is he in your charge now \ " 

" He is not," was her rejoinder. 

" Then, if I gave you instructions 
for his treatment through the night, 
you could not assist him ? " 

The woman wept bitterly, as she 
replied, " I could not." 

Finding that there was but little 
prospect of obtaining more informa- 
tion by prolonging the interview ; and 
anxious to spare the woman's feelings, 
which, subdued at first by a violent 
effort, were now irrepressible and 
most painful to witness ; the surgeon 
repeated his promise of calling in the 
morning at the appointed hour. His 
visitor, after giving him a direction 
to an obscure part of Walworth, left 
the house in the same mysterious man- 
ner in which she had entered it. 

It will be readily believed that so 
extraordinary a visit produced a con- 
siderable impression on the mind of 
the young surgeon ; and that he specu- 
lated a great deal and to very little 
purpose on the possible circumstances 
of the case. In common with the 
generality of people, he had often 
heard and read of singular instances, 
in which a presentiment of death, at 
a particular day, or even minute, had 
been entertained and realised. At 
one moment he was inclined to think 
that the present might be such a case ; 
but, then, it occurred to him that all 
the anecdotes of the kind he had ever 
heard, were of persons who had been 
troubled with a foreboding of their 
own death. This woman, however, 
spoke of another person — a man ; and 
it was impossible to suppose that a 
mere dream or delusion of fancy would 
induce her to speak of his approaching 
dissolution with such terrible certainty 
as she had spoken. It could not be that 
the man was to be murdered in the 
morning, and that the woman, origin- 
ally a consenting party, and bound to 
secresy by an oath, had relented, and, 
though unable to prevent the com- 
mission of some outrage on the victim, 
had determined to prevent his death 



230 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



if possible, by the timely interposition 
of medical aid ? The idea of such things 
happening -within two miles of the 
metropolis appeared too wild and pre- 
posterous to be entertained beyond the 
instant. Then, his original impression 
that the woman's intellects were dis- 
ordered, recurred ; and, as it was the 
only mode of solving the difficulty with 
any degree of satisfaction, he obsti- 
nately made up his mind to believe 
that she was mad. Certain misgivings 
upon this point, however, stole upon 
his thoughts at the time, and presented 
themselves again and again through 
the long dull course of a sleepless 
night : during which, in spite of all his 
efforts to the contrary, he was unable 
to banish the black veil from his dis- 
turbed imagination. 

The back part of Walworth, at its 
greatest distance from town, is a 
straggling miserable place enough, 
even in these days ; but, five-and- 
thirty years ago, the greater portion 
of it was little better than a dreary 
waste, inhabited by a few scattered 
people of questionable character, 
whose poverty prevented their living 
in any better neighbourhood, or whose 
pursuits and mode of life rendered 
its solitude desirable. Very many of 
the houses which have since sprung 
up on all sides, were not built until 
some years afterwards ; and the great 
majority even of those which were 
sprinkled about, at irregular intervals, 
were of the rudest .and most miserable 
description. 

The appearance of the place through 
which he walked in the morning, was 
not calculated to Taise the spirits of the 
young surgeon, or to dispel any feeling 
of anxiety or depression which the 
singular kind of visit he was about to 
make, had awakened. Striking off 
from the high road, his way lay across 
a marshy common, through irregular 
lanes, with here and there a ruinous 
and dismantled cottage fast falling 
to pieces with decay and neglect. A 
stunted tree, or pool of stagnant water, 
roused into a sluggish action by the 
heavy rain of the preceding night, 
skirted the path occasionally ; and, 



now and then, a miserable patch of 
garden-ground, with a few old boards 
knocked together for a summer-house, 
and old palings imperfectly mended 
with stakes pilfered from the neigh- 
bouring hedges, bore testimony, at 
once to the poverty of the inhabitants, 
and the little scruple they entertained 
in appropriating the property of other 
people to their own use. Occasionally, 
a filthy-looking woman would make 
her appearance from the door of a 
dirty house, to empty the contents of 
some cooking utensil into the gutter in 
front, or to scream after a little slip- 
shod girl, who had contrived to stagger 
a few yards from the door under the 
weight of a sallow infant almost as 
big as herself ; but, scarcely anything 
was stirring around ; and so much of 
the prospect as could be faintly traced 
through the cold damp mist which 
hung heavily over it, presented a 
lonely and dreary appearance per- 
fectly in keeping with the objects we 
have described. 

After plodding wearily through the 
mud and mire ; making many inquiries 
for the place to which he had been 
directed ; and receiving as many con- 
tradictory and unsatisfactory replies 
in return ; the young man at length 
arrived before the house which had 
been pointed out to him as the object 
of his destination. It was a small low 
building, one story above the ground, 
with even a more desolate and unpro- 
mising exterior than any he had yet 
passed. An old yellow curtain was 
closely drawn across the window up 
stairs, and the parlour shutters were 
closed, but not fastened. The house 
was detached from any other, and, as 
it stood at an angle of a narrow lane, 
there was no other habitation in 
sight. 

When we say that the surgeon hesi- 
tated, and walked a few paces beyond 
the house, before he could prevail upon 
himself to lift the knocker, we say 
nothing that need raise a smile upon 
the face of the boldest reader. The 
police of London were a very different 
body in that day ; the isolated position 
of the suburbs, when the rage for build- 



THE BLACK VEIL. 



231 



ing and the progress of improvement, 
had not yet begun to connect them with 
the main body of the city and its 
environs, rendered many of them (and 
this in particular) a place of resort 
for the worst and most depraved 
characters. Even the streets in the 
gayest parts of London were imper- 
fectly lighted, at that time ; and such 
places as these, were left entirely to 
the mei'cy of the moon and stars. The 
chances of detecting desperate charac- 
ters, or of tracing them to their 
haunts, were thus rendered very few, 
and their offences naturally increased 
in boldness, as the consciousness of 
comparative security became the more 
impressed upon them by daily expe- 
rience. Added to these considerations, 
it must be remembered that the young 
man had spent some time in the publie 
hospitals of the metropolis ; and, al- 
though neither Burke nor Bishop 
had then gained a horrible notoriety, 
his own observation might have sug- 
gested to him how easily the atrocities 
to which the former has since given 
his name, might be committed. Be 
•this as it may, whatever reflection 
made him hesitate, he did hesitate ; 
but, being a young man of strong 
mind and great personal courage, it 
was only for an instant ; — he stepped 
briskly back, and knocked gently at 
the door. 

A low whispering was audible, im- 
mediately afterwards, as if some 
person at the end of the passage were 
conversing stealthily with another on 
the landing above. It was succeeded 
by the noise of a pair of heavy boots 
upon the bare floor. The door-chain 
was softly unfastened ; the door 
opened ; and a tall, ill-favoured man, 
with black hair, and a face, as the 
surgeon often declared afterwards, as 
pale and haggard, as the countenance 
of any dead man he ever saw, pre- 
sented himself. 

" Walk in, sir/' he said in a low 
tone. 

The surgeon did so, and the man, 
having secured the door again, by the 
chain, led the way to a small back par- 
lour at the extremity of the passage. 



" Am I in time 1 



* Too : 



replied the man. The 



surgeon turned hastily round, with a 
gesture of astonishment not unmixed 
with alarm, which he found it impos- 
sible to repress. 

" If you '11 step in here, sir," said 
the man, who had evidently noticed 
the action — " if you '11 step in here, 
sir, you won't be detained five minutes, 
I assure you." 

The surgeon at once walked into the , 
room. The man closed the door, and 
left him alone. 

It was a little cold room, with no 
other furniture than two deal chairs, 
and a table of the same material. A 
handful of fire, unguarded by any fen- 
der, was burning in the grate, which 
brought out the damp if it served no 
more comfortable purpose, for the 
unwholesome moisture was stealing 
down the walls, in long, slug-like 
tracks. The window, which was 
broken and patched in many places, 
looked into a small enclosed piece of 
ground, almost covered with water. 
Not a sound was to be heard, either 
within the house, or without. The 
young surgeon sat down by the fire- 
place, to await the result of his first 
professional visit. 

He had not remained in this posi- 
tion, many minutes, when the noise of 
some approaching vehicle struck his 
ear. It stopped ; the street-door was 
opened ; a low talking succeeded, ac- 
companied with a shuffling noise of 
footsteps, along the passage and on the 
stairs, as if two or three men were 
engaged in carrying some heavy body 
to the room above. The creaking of 
the stairs, a few seconds afterwards, 
announced that the new comers having 
completed their task, whatever it was, 
were leaving the house. The door was 
again closed, and the former silence 
was restored. 

Another five minutes elapsed, 
and the surgeon had resolved to ex- 
plore the house, in search of some one 
to whom he might make his errand 
known, when the room-door opened, 
and his last night's visitor, dressed in 
exactly the same manner, with the veil 



232 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



lowered as before, motioned him to 
advance. The singular height of her 
form, coupled with the circumstance 
of her not speaking, caused the idea 
to pass across his brain, for an instant, 
that it might be a man disguised in 
woman's attire. The hysteric sobs 
which issued from beneath the veil, 
and the convulsive attitude of grief of 
the whole figure, however, at once 
exposed the absurdity of the suspi- 
cion ; and he hastily followed. 

The woman led the way up stairs to 
the front room, and paused at the 
door, to let him enter first. It was 
scantily furnished with an old deal 
cox, a few chairs, and a tent bed- 
Stead, without hangings or cross-rails, 
which was covered with a patchwork 
counterpane. The dim light admitted 
through the curtain which he had 
noticed from the outside, rendered 
the objects in the room so indistinct, 
and communicated to all of them 
so uniform a hue, that he did not, at 
first, perceive the object on which 
his eye at once rested when the 
woman rushed frantically past him, 
and flung herself on her knees by the 
bedside. 

Stretched upon the bed, closely en- 
veloped in a linen wrapper, and covered 
with blankets, lay a human form, stiff 
and motionless. The head and face, 
which were those of a man, were un- 
covered, save by a bandage which 
passed over the head and under the 
chin. The eyes were closed. The left 
arm lay heavily across the bed, and 
the woman held the passive hand. 

The surgeon gently pushed the 
woman aside, and took the hand in his. 

" My God ! " he exclaimed, letting 
it fall involuntarily — " the man is 
dead ! " 

The woman started to her feet and 
beat her hands together. " Oh ! 
don't say so, sir," she exclaimed, 
with a burst of passion, amounting 
almost to frenzy. " Oh ! don't say so, 
sir! I can't bear it ! Men have been 
brought to life, before, when unskilful 
people have given them up for lost ; 
and men have died, who might have 
been restored, if proper means had | 



been resorted to. Don't let him lie 
here, sir, without one effort to save 
him ! This very moment life may be 
passing away. Do try, sir, — do, for 
Heaven's sake!" — And while speaking, 
she hurriedly chafed, first the forehead, 
and then the breast, of the senseless 
form before her ; and then, wildly beat 
the cold hands, which, when she ceased 
to hold them, fell listlessly and heavily 
back on the coverlet. 

" It is of no use, my good woman/' 
said the surgeon, soothingly, as he 
withdrew his hand from the man's 
breast. " Stay — undraw that curtain ! " 

" Why % " said the woman, starting 
up. 

" Undraw that curtain ! " repeated 
the surgeon, in an agitated tone. 

" I darkened the room on purpose," 
said the woman, throwing herself be- 
fore him as he rose to undraw it. — 
" Oh ! sir, have pity on me ! If it can 
be of no use, and he is really dead, do 
not expose that form to other eyes 
than mine ! " 

" This man died no natural or easy 
death," said the surgeon. u I must see 
the body ! " With a motion so sud- 
den, that the woman hardly knew that 
he had slipped from beside her, he 
tore open the curtain, admitted the 
full light of day, and returned to the 
bedside. 

" There has been violence here," he 
said, pointing towards the body, and 
gazing intently on the face, from which, 
the black veil was now, for the first 
time, removed. In the excitement of 
a minute before, the female had thrown 
off the bonnet and veil, and now stood 
Avith her eyes fixed upon him. Hey 
features were those of a woman of 
about fifty, who had once been hand- 
some. Sorrow and weeping had left 
traces upon them which not time itself 
would ever have produced without 
their aid ; her face was deadly pale ; 
and there was a nervous contortion of 
the lip, and an unnatural fire in her 
eye, which showed too plainly that her 
bodily and mental powers had nearly 
sunk, beneath an accumulation of 
misery. 

" There has been violence here," 



THE BLACK VEIL. 



233 



said the surgeon, preserving his search- 
ing glance. 

" There has ! " replied the woman. 

" This man has been murdered." 

" That I call God to witness he has," 
said the woman, passionately; "piti- 
lessly, inhumanly murdered ! " 

u By whom ? " said the surgeon, 
seizing the woman by the arm. 

" Look at the butchers' marks, and 
then ask me!" she replied. 

The surgeon turned his face towards 
the bed, and bent over the body which 
now lay full in the light of the window. 
The throat was swollen, and a livid 
mark encircled it. The truth flashed 
suddenly upon him. 

" This is one of the men who were 
hanged this morning!" he exclaimed, 
turning away with a shudder. 

" It is," replied the woman, with a 
cold, unmeaning stare. 

" Who was he \ " inquired the 
surgeon. 

" My son," rejoined the woman; and 
fell senseless at his feet. 

It was true. A companion, equally 
guilty with himself, had been acquitted 
for want of evidence; and this man 
had been left for death, and executed. 
To recount the circumstances of the 
case, at this distant period, must be 
unnecessary, and might give pain to 
some persons still alive. The history 
was an every-day one. The mother 
was a widow without friends or money, 
and had denied herself necessaries to 



bestow them on her orphan boy. That 
boy, unmindful of her prayers, and 
forgetful of the sufferings she had en- 
dured for him — incessant anxiety of 
mind, and voluntary starvation of body 
— had plunged into a career of dissi- 
pation and crime. And this was the 
result ; his own death by the hang- 
man's hands, and his mother's shame, 
and incurable insanity. 

For many years after this occur- 
rence, and when profitable and arduous 
avocations would have led many men 
to forget that such a miserable being 
existed, the young surgeon was a daily 
visitor at the side of the harmless mad 
woman; not only soothing her by his 
presence and kindness, but alleviating 
the rigour of her condition by pecu- 
niary donations for her comfort and 
support, bestowed with no sparing 
hand. In the transient gleam of re- 
collection and consciousness which 
preceded her death, a prayer for his 
welfare and protection, as fervent as 
mortal ever breathed, rose from the 
lips of this poor friendless creature. 
That prayer flew to Heaven, and was 
heard. The blessings he was instru- 
mental in conferring, have been repaid 
to him a thousand-fold ; but, amid all 
the honours of rank and station which 
have since been heaped upon him, and 
which he has so well earned, he can 
have no reminiscence more gratify- 
ing to his heart than that connected 
with The Black Veil. 



234 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE STEAM EXCURSION. 



Mr. Percy Noakes was a law- student, 
inhabiting a set of chambers on the 
fourth floor, in one of those houses in 
Gray 's-inn- square which command an 
extensive view of the gardens, and 
their usual adjuncts — flaunting nur- 
sery-maids, and town-made children, 
with parenthetical legs. Mr. Percy 
Noakes was what is generally termed 
— '".a devilish good fellow." He had 
a large circle of acquaintance, and 
seldom dined at his own expense. He 
used to talk politics to papas, flatter 
the vanity of mammas, do the amiable 
to then' daughters, make pleasure en- 
gagements with their sons, and romp 
with the younger branches. Like those 
paragons of perfection, advertising foot- 
men out of place, he was always ' s will- 
ing to make himself generally useful." 
If any old lady, whose son was in India, 
gave a ball, Mr. Perey Noakes was 
master of the ceremonies ; if any young 
lady made a stolen match, Mr. Percy 
Noakes gave her away; if a juvenile 
wife presented her husband with a 
blooming cherub, Mr. Percy Noakes 
was either godfather, or deputy-god- 
father; and if any member of a friend's 
family died, Mr. Percy Noakes was 
invariably to be seen in the second 
mourning coach, with a white hand- 
kerchief to his eyes, sobbing — to use 
his own appropriate and expressive 
description — " like winkin ! " 

It may readily be imagined that 
these numerous avocations were rather 
calculated to interfere with Mr. Percy 
Noakes's professional studies. Mr. 
Percy Noakes was perfectly aware 
of the fact, and had, therefore, after 
mature reflection, made up his mind 
not to study at all — a laudable deter- 
mination, to which he adhered in the 
most praiseworthy manner. His sit- 
ting-room presented a strange chaos 
of dress-gloves, boxing-gloves, carica- 



tures, albums, invitation- cards, foils, 
cricket - bats, card - board drawings, 
paste, gum, and fifty other miscella- 
neous articles, heaped together in the 
strangest confusion. He was always 
making something for somebody, or 
planning some party of pleasure, 
which was his great forte. He in- 
variably spoke with astonishing rapi- 
dity; was smart, spoffish, and eight- 
and-twenty. 

K Splendid idea, 'pon my life ! " 
soliloquised Mr. Percy Noakes, over 
his morning's coffee, as his mind re- 
verted to a suggestion which had 
been thrown out on the previous night, 
by a lady at whose house he had 
spent the evening. " Glorious idea ! — 
Mrs. Stubbs." 

" Yes, sir," replied a dirty old 
woman with an inflamed countenance, 
emerging from the bedroom, with a 
barrel of dirt and cinders. — This 
was the laundress, " Did you call, 
sir!" 

" Oh ! Mrs. Stubbs, I 'm going out If 
that tailor should call again, you'd better 
say — you'd better say I 'm out of town, 
and shan't be back for a fortnight ; and 
if that bootmaker should come, tell 
him I 've lost his address, or I 'd have 
sent him that little amount. Mind he 
writes it down ; and if Mr. Hardy 
should call — you know Mr. Hardy \ " 

" The funny gentleman, sir I " 

u Ah ! the funny gentleman. If 
Mr. Hardy should call, say I 've gone 
to Mrs. Taunton's about that water- 
party." 

" Yes, sir." 

" And if any fellow calls, and says 
he 's come about a steamer, tell him 
to be here at five o'clock this after- 
noon, Mrs. Stubbs." 

" Very well, sir." 

Mr. Percy Noakes brushed his hat, 
whisked the crumbs off his inexpli- 



THE STEAM EXCURSION. 



235 



•cables with a silk handkerchief, gave 
-the ends of his hair a persuasive roll 
round his forefinger, and sallied forth 
for Mrs, Taunton's domicile in Great 
Marlborough-street, where she and her 
daughters occupied the upper part of 
a house. She was a good-looking 
•widow of fifty, with the form of a 
•giantess and the mind of a child. 
The pursuit of pleasure, and some 
means of killing time, were the sole 
end of her existence. She doted on 
her daughters, who were as frivolous 
as herself. 

A general exclamation of satisfac- 
tion hailed the arrival of Mr. Percy 
Noakes, who went through the ordi- 
nary salutations, and threw himself 
into an easy chair near the ladies' 
work-table, with the ease of a regu- 
larly established friend of the family. 
Mrs. Taunton was busily engaged in 
planting immense bright bows on every 
part of a smart cap on which it was 
possible to stick one ; Miss Emily 
Taunton was making a watch-guard ; 
Miss Sophia was at the piano, prac- 
tising a new song — poetry by the 
young officer, or the police-officer, or 
the custom-house officer, or some 
other interesting amateur. 

" You good creature ! " said Mrs. 
Taunton, addressing the gallant Percy. 
" You really are a good soul ! You ' ve 
come about the water-party, I know." 

"I should rather suspect I had," 
replied Mr. Noakes, triumphantly. 
" Now come here, girls, and I '11 tell you 
all about it." Miss Emily and Miss 
Sophia advanced to the table. 
■ " Now, " continued Mr. Percy 
Noakes, "it seems to me that the 
hest way will be, to have a committee 
of ten, to make all the arrangements, 
and manage the whole set-out. Then, 
I propose that the expenses shall be 
paid by these ten fellows jointly." 

" Excellent, indeed ! " said Mrs. 
Taunton, who highly approved of this 
part of the arrangements. 

" Then, my plan is, that each of 
these ten fellows shall have the power 
of asking five people. There must be 
a meeting of the committee, at my 



chambers, to make all the arrange- 
ments, and these people shall be then 
named ; every member of the com- 
mittee shall have the power of black- 
balling any one who is proposed ; and 
one black ball shall exclude that 
person. This will ensure our having 
a pleasant party, you know." 

" What a manager you are ! " inter- 
rupted Mrs. Taunton again. 

" Charming ! " said the lovely Emily. 

" I never did ! " ejaculated Sophia. 

" Yes, I think it '11 do," replied Mr' 
Percy Noakes, who was now quite in 
his element. " I think it '11 do. Then 
you know we shall go down to the 
Nore, and back, and have a regular 
capital cold dinner laid out in the 
cabin before we start, so that every- 
thing may be ready without any con- 
fusion ; and we shall have the lunch 
laid out, on deck, in those little tea- 
garden-looking concerns by the paddle- 
boxes — I don 't know what you call 
'em. Then, we shall hire a steamer 
expressly for our party, and a band, 
and have the deck chalked, and we 
shall be able to dance quadrilles all 
clay; and then, whoever we know that's 
musical, you know, why they '11 make 
themselves useful and agreeable ; and 
— and — upon the whole, I really hope 
we shall have a glorious day, you 
know !" 

The announcement of these arrange- 
ments was received with the utmost 
enthusiasm. Mrs. Taunton, Emily, 
and Sophia, were loud in their praises. 

" Well, but tell me, Percy," said 
Mrs. Taunton, " who are the ten 
gentlemen to be I " 

" Oh ! I know plenty of fellows 
who '11 be delighted with the scheme," 
replied Mr. Percy Noakes; " of course, 

we shall have " 

" Mr. Hardy !" interrupted the ser- 
vant, announcing a visitor. Miss 
Sophia and Miss Emily hastily assumed 
the most interesting attitudes that 
could be adopted on so short a notice. 
" How are you ? " said a stout gentle- 
man of about forty, pausing at the door 
in the attitude of an awkward harle- 
quin. This was Mr. Hardy, whom we 



236 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



have before described, on the authority 
of Mrs. Stubbs, as "the funny gentle- 
man." He was an Astley-Cooperish 
Joe Miller — a practical joker, im- 
mensely popular with married ladies, 
and a general favourite with youug 
men. He was always engaged in some 
pleasure excursion or other, and de- 
lighted in getting somebody into a 
scrape on such occasions. He could 
sing comic songs, imitate hackney- 
coachmen and fowls, play airs on his 
chin, and execute concertos on the 
Jews'-harp. He always eat and drank 
most immoderately, and was the bosom 
friend of Mr. Percy Noakes. He had 
a red face, a somewhat husky voice, 
and a tremendous laugh. 

" How are you ?" said this worthy, 
laughing, as if it were the finest joke 
in the world to make a morning call, 
and shaking hands with the ladies with 
as much vehemence as if their arms 
had been so many pump-handles. 

" You 're just the very man I 
wanted," said Mr. Percy Noakes, who 
proceeded to explain the cause of his 
being in requisition. 

"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted Hardy, 
after hearing the statement, and re- 
ceiving a detailed account of the pro- 
posed excursion. "Oh, capital! glori- 
ous ! What a day it will be ! what 
fun ! — But, I say, when are you going 
to begin making the arrangements ? " 

"No time like the present — at 
once, if you please." 

" Oh, charming ! " cried the ladies. 
" Pray, do ! " 

Writing materials were laid before 
Mr. Percy Noakes, and the names of 
the different members of the commit- 
tee were agreed on, after as much 
discussion between him and Mr. 
Hardy as if the fate of nations had 
depended on their appointment. It 
was then agreed that a meeting should 
take place at Mr. Percy Noakes's 
chambers on the ensuing Wednesday 
evening at eight o'clock, and the visi- 
tors departed. 

Wednesday evening arrived ; eight 
o'clock came, and eight members of 
the committee were punctual in their 



attendance. Mr. Loggins, the solici- 
tor, of Boswell-court, sent an excuse, 
and Mr. Samuel Briggs, the ditto of 
Furnival'slnn, sent his brother : much 
I to his (the brother's) satisfaction, and 
j greatly to the discomfiture of Mr. 
J Percy Noakes. Between the Briggses 
and the Tauntons there existed a de- 
! gree of implacable hatred, quite un- 
j precedented. The animosity between 
the Montagues and Capulets, was no- 
thing to that which prevailed be- 
j tween these two illustrious houses. 
Mrs. Briggs was a widow, with three 
daughters and two sons ; Mr. Samuel, 
the eldest, was an attorney, and Mr. 
Alexander, the youngest, was under 
articles to his brother. They resided 
in Portland-street, Oxford-street, and 
moved in the same orbit as the Taun- 
tons — hence their mutual dislike. If 
the Miss Briggses appeared in smart 
bonnets, the Miss Tauntons eclipsed 
them with smarter. If Mrs. Taunton 
appeared in a cap of all the hues of 
the rainbow, Mrs. Briggs forthwith 
mounted a toque, with all the patterns 
of the kaleidoscope. If Miss Sophia 
Taunton learnt a new song, two of the 
Miss Briggses came out with a new 
duet. The Tauntons had once gained 
a temporary triumph with the assist- 
ance of a harp, but the Briggses 
brought three guitars into the field, 
and effectually routed the enemy. 
There was no end to the rivalry be- 
tween them. 

Now, as Mr. Samuel Briggs was a 
mere machine, a sort of self-acting 
legal walking-stick ; and as the party 
was known to have originated, how- 
ever remotely, with Mrs. Taunton, the 
female branches of the Briggs family 
had arranged that Mr. Alexander 
should attend, instead of his brother ; 
and as the said Mr. Alexander was 
deservedly celebrated for possessing 
all the pertinacity of a bankruptcy- 
court attorney, combined with the ob- 
stinacy of that useful animal which 
browses on the thistle, he required 
but little tuition. He was especially 
enjoined to make himself as disagree- 
able as possible ; and, above all, to 



THE STEAM EXCURSION. 



237 



black-ball the Tauntons at every 
hazard. 

The proceedings of the evening were 
opened by Mr. Percy Noakes. After 
successfully urging on the gentle- 
men present the propriety of their 
mixing some brandy-and-water, he 
briefly stated the object of the meet- 
ing, and concluded by observing that 
the first step must be the selection of 
a chairman, necessarily possessing 
some arbitrary — he trusted not uncon- 
stitutional — powers, to whom the per- 
sonal direction of the whole of the 
arrangements (subject to the approval 
of the committee) should be confided. 
A pale young gentleman, in a green 
stock and spectacles of the same, a 
member of the honourable society of 
the Inner Temple, immediately rose 
for the purpose of proposing Mr. 
Percy Noakes. He had known him 
long, and this he would say, that a 
more honourable, a more excellent, or 
a better-hearted fellow, never existed. 
'—(Hear, hear !) The young gentle- 
man, who was a member of a debating 
society, took this opportunity of enter- 
ing into an examination of the state of 
the English law, from the days of 
William the Conqueror down to the 
present period ; he briefly adverted 
to the code established by the ancient 
Druids ; slightly glanced at the prin- 
ciples laid down by the Athenian law- 
givers ; and concluded with a most 
glowing eulogium on pic-nics and con- 
stitutional rights. 

Mi\ Alexander Briggs opposed the 
motion. He had the highest esteem 
for Mr. Percy Noakes as an individual, 
but he did consider that he ought rot 
to be intrusted with these immense 
powers — (oh, oh !) — He believed that 
in the proposed capacity Mr. Percy 
Noakes would not act fairly, impar- 
tially, or honourably ; but he begged 
at to be distinctly understood, that he 
said this, without the slightest personal 
disrespect. Mr. Hardy defended his 
honourable friend, in a voice rendered 
partially unintelligible by emotion and 
brandy-and-water. The proposition 
was put to the vote, and there ap- 



pearing to be only one dissentient 
voice, Mr. Percy Noakes- was de- 
clared duly elected, and took the chair 
accordingly. 

The business of the meeting now 
proceeded with rapidity. The chair- 
man delivered in his estimate of the 
probable expense of the excursion, 
and every one present subscribed his 
proportion thereof. The question was 
put that " The Endeavour " be hired 
for the occasion ; Mr. Alexander- 
Briggs moved as an amendment, that 
the word " Fly " be substituted for the 
word " Endeavour ;" but after some 
debate consented to withdraw his 
opposition. The important ceremony 
of balloting then commenced. A 
tea-caddy was placed on a table in 
a dark corner of the apartment, and 
every one was provided with two 
backgammon men, one black and one 
white. 

The chairman with great solemnity 
then read the following list of the 
guests whom he proposed to introduce : 
— Mrs. Taunton and two daughters, 
Mr. Wizzle, Mr. Simson. The names 
were respectively balloted for, and 
Mrs. Taunton and her daughters were 
declai-ed to be black-balled. Mr. Percy 
Noakes and Mr. Hardy exchanged 
glances. 

" Is your list prepared, Mr. Briggs \ " 
inquired the chairman. 

" It is," replied Alexander, deliver- 
ing in the following : — " Mrs. Briggs 
and three daughters, Mr. Samuel 
Briggs." The previous ceremony was 
repeated, and Mrs. Briggs and three 
daughters were declared to be black- 
balled. Mr. Alexander Briggs looked 
rather foolish, and the remainder of 
the company appeared somewhat over- 
awed by the mysterious nature of the 
proceedings. 

The balloting proceeded ; but, one 
little circumstance which Mr. Percy 
Noakeshad not originally foreseen,pre- 
vented the system from working quite 
as well as he had anticipated. Every- 
body was black-balled. Mr. Alex- 
ander Briggs, by way of retaliation, 
exercised his power of exclusion in 



238 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



every instance, and the result was, 
that after three hours had been, con- 
sumed in hard balloting; the names 
of only three gentlemen were found to 
have been agreed to. In this dilemma 
what was to be done ? either the whole 
plan must fall to the ground, or a com- 
promise must be effected. The latter 
alternative was preferable ; and Mr. 
Percy Noakes therefore proposed that 
the form of balloting shouldbe dispensed 
with, and that every gentleman should 
merely be required to state whom he 
intended to bring. The proposal was 
acceded to ; the Tauntons and the 
Briggses were reinstated ; and the 
party was formed. 

The next Wednesday was fixed for 
the eventful day, and it was unani- 
mously resolved that every member of 
the committee should wear a piece of 
blue sarsenet ribbon round his left arm. 
It appeared from the statement of Mr. 
Percy Noakes, that the boat belonged 
to the General Steam Navigation Com- 
pany, and was then lying off the Cus- 
tom-house ; and, as he proposed that the 
dinner and. wines should be provided 
by an eminent city purveyor, it was 
arranged that Mr. Percy Noakes should 
be on board by seven o'clock to super- 
intend the arrangements, and that the 
remaining members of the committee, 
together with the company generally, 
should be expected to join her by nine 
o'clock. More brandy-and-water was 
despatched ; several speeches were 
made by the different law students 
present ; thanks were voted to the 
chairman; and the meeting separated. 

The weather had been beautiful up 
to this period, and beautiful it con- 
tinued to be. Sunday passed over, and 
Mr. Percy Noakes became unusually 
fidgetty — rushing, constantly, to and 
from the Steam Packet Wharf, to the 
astoni&hment of the clerks, and the 
great emolument of the Holborn cab- 
men. Tuesday arrived, and the anxiety 
of Mr. Percy Noake& knew no bounds. 
He was every instant running to the 
window, to look out for clouds ; and 
Mr. Hardy astonished the whole square 
by practising a new comic song for 



the occasion, in the chairman's cham- 
bers. 

Uneasy were the slumbers of Mr. 
Percy Noakes that night ; he tossed, 
and tumbled about, and had confused 
dreams of steamers starting off, and 
gigantic clocks with the hands pointing 
to a quarter past nine, and the ugly 
face of Mr. Alexander Briggs looking 
over the boat's side, and grinning, as if 
in derision of his fruitless attempts to 
move. He made a violent effort to 
get on board, and awoke. The bright 
sun was shining cheerfully into the 
bed-room, and Mr. Percy Noakes 
started up for his watch, in the dread- 
ful expectation of finding his worst 
dreams realised. 

It was just five o'clock. He calcu- 
lated the time — he should be a good 
half -hour dressing himself ; and as it 
was a lovely morning, and the tide 
would be then running down, he would 
walk leisurely to Strand- lane, and have 
a boat to the Custom-house. 

He dressed himself, took a hasty 
apology for a breakfast, and sallied 
forth. The streets looked as lonely 
and deserted as if they had been 
crowded, overnight, for the last time. 
Here and there, an early apprentice, 
with quenched-looking sleepy eyes, was 
taking down the shutters of a shop; 
and a policeman or milk- woman might 
occasionally be seen pacing slowly along-, 
but the servants had not yet begun t© 
clean the doors, or light the kitchen fires, 
and London looked the picture of desor 
lation. At the corner of a bye-street, 
near Temple-bar, was stationed a 
"street-breakfast." The coffee was 
boiling over a charcoal fire, and large 
slices of bread and butter were piled 
one upon the other, like deals in a 
timber-yard. The company were 
seated on a form, which, with a view 
both to security and comfort, was 
placed against a neighbouring walL 
Two young men, whose uproarious 
mirth and disordered dress bespoke 
the conviviality of the preceding even- 
ing, were treating three " ladies " and 
an Irish labourer. A little sweep was 
standing at a short distance, casting a 



THE STEAM EXCURSION. 



239 



longing eye at the tempting delicacies ; 
and a policeman was watching the 
group from the opposite side of the 
street. The wan looks, and gaudy- 
finery of the thinly-clad women 
contrasted as strangely with the 
gay sun-light, as did their forced 
merriment with the boisterous hilarity 
of the two young men, who, now and 
then, varied their amusements by 
"bonneting" the proprietor of this 
itinerant coffee-house. 

Mr. Percy Noakes walked briskly 
by, and when he turned down Strand- 
lane, and caught a glimpse of the 
glistening water, he thought he had 
never felt so important or so happy in 
his life. 

" Boat, sir ! " cried one of the 
three watermen who were mopping 
out their boats, and all whistling. 
« Boat, sir ! " 

"No," replied Mr. Percy Noakes, 
rather sharply; for the inquiry was 
not made in a manner at all suitable 
to his dignity. 

" Would you prefer a wessel, sir ? " 
inquired another, to the infinite delight 
of the " Jack-in-the- water." 

Mr. Percy Noakes replied with a 
look of supreme contempt. 

" Did you want to be put on board 
a steamer, sir ? " inquired an old 
fireman-waterman, very confidentially. 
He was dressed in a faded red suit, 
just the colour of the cover of a very 
old Court-guide. 

"Yes, make haste — tho Endeavour 
— off the Custom-house." 

" Endeavour ! " cried the man who 
had convulsed the " Jack" before. 
" Vy, I see the Endeavour go up half 
an hour ago." 

"So did I," said another; "and I 
should think she'd gone down by this 
time, for she 's a precious sight too 
full of ladies and gen'lemen." 

Mr. Percy Noakes affected to dis- 
regard these representations, and 
stepped into the boat, which the old 
man, by dint of scrambling, and shov- 
ing, and grating, had brought up to 
the causeway. " Shove her off ! " cried 
Mr. Percy Noakes, and away the boat 



glided clown the river ; Mr. Percy 
Noakes seated on the recently mopped 
seat, and the watermen at the stairs 
offering to bet him any reasonable sum 
that he'd never reach the "Custum- 
us." 

" Here she is, by Jove ! " said the 
delighted Percy, as they ran alongside 
the Endeavour. 

"Hold hard I" cried the steward 
over the side, and Mr. Percy Noakes 
jumped on board. 

" Hope you will find everything as 
you wished, sir. She looks uncommon 
well this morning." 

" She does, indeed," replied the 
manager, in a state of ecstasy which it 
is impossible to describe. The deck 
was scrubbed,, and the seats were 
scrubbed, and there was a bench for 
the band, and a place for dancing, and 
a pile of camp-stools^ and an awning ; 
and then, Mr. Percy Noakes bustled 
down below, and there were the pas- 
trycook's men, and the steward's wife, 
laying out the dinner on two tables 
the whole length of the cabin; and 
then, Mr. Percy Noakes took off his 
coat and rushed backwards and 
forwards, doing nothing, but quite con- 
vinced he was assisting everybody ; 
and the steward's wife laughed till she 
cried, and Mr. Percy Noakes panted 
with the violence of his exertions. 
And then, the bell at London-bridge 
wharf rang ; and a Margate boat was 
just starting ; and a Gravesend boat 
was just starting, and people shouted, 
and porters ran down the steps with 
luggage that would crush any men but 
porters ; and sloping boards, with bits 
of wood nailed on them were placed 
between the outside boat and the in- 
side boat; and the passengers ran 
along them, and looked like so many 
fowls coming out of an area; and then, 
the bell ceased, and the boards were 
taken away, and the boats started, and 
the whole scene was one of the most 
delightful bustle and confusion. 

The time wore on ; half-past eight 
o'clock arrived ; the pastrycook's men 
went ashore ; the dinner was com- 
pletely laid out; and Mr. Percy Noakes 



240 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



locked the principal cabin, and put the 
key in his pocket, in order that it 
might be suddenly disclosed, in all its 
magnificence, to the eyes of the 
astonished company. The band came 
on board, and so did the wine. 

Ten minutes to nine, and the com- 
mittee embarked in a body. There 
was Mr. Hardy, in a blue jacket and 
waistcoat, white trousers, silk stock- 
ings, and pumps — in full aquatic 
costume, with a straw hat on his 
head, and an immense telescope 
under his arm ; and there was the 
young gentleman with the green spec- 
tacles, in nankeen inexplieables, with a 
ditto waistcoat and bright buttons, like 
the pictures of Paul — not the saint, but 
he of Virginia notoriety. The re- 
mainder of the committee, dressed in 
white hats, light jackets, waistcoats, 
and trousers, looked something be- 
tween waiters and West India planters. 

Nine o'clock struck, and the com- 
pany arrived in shoals. Mr. Samuel 
Briggs, Mrs. Briggs, and the Misses 
Briggs, made their appearance in a 
smart private wherry. The three 
guitars, in their respective dark green 
cases, were carefully stowed away in 
the bottom of the boat, accompanied 
by two immense portfolios of music, 
which it would take at least a week's 
incessant playing to get through. The 
Tauntons arrived at the same moment 
with more music, and a lion — a gentle- 
man with a bass voice and an incipient 
red moustache. The colours of the 
Taunton party were pink ; those of the 
Briggses a light blue. The Tauntons 
had artificial flowers in their bonnets ; 
here the Briggses gained a decided 
advantage — they wore feathers. 

"How d'ye do, dear?" said the 
Misses Briggs to the Misses Taunton. 
(The word " dear " among girls is fre- 
quently synonymous with u wretch.") 

•'■' Quite well, thank you, dear," re- 
plied the Misses Taunton to the Misses 
Briggs ; and then, there was such a 
kissing, and congratulating, and shaking 
of hands, as might have induced one to 
suppose that the two families were the 
best friends in the world, instead of 



each wishing the other overboard, as 
they most sincerely did. 

Mr. Percy Noakes received the 
visitors, and bowed to the strange 
gentleman, as if he should like to know 
who he was. This was just what Mrs. 
Taunton wanted. Here was an oppor- 
tunity to astonish the Briggses. 

" Oh ! I beg your pardon," said the 
general of the Taunton party, with a 
careless air. — " Captain Helves — Mr. 
Percy Noakes— Mrs. Briggs — Captain 
Helves." 

Mr. Percy Noakes bowed very low ; 
the gallant captain did the same with 
all due ferocity, and the Briggses were 
clearly overcome. 

" Our friend, Mr. Wizzle, being un- 
fortunately prevented from coming," 
resumed Mrs. Taunton, " I did myself 
the pleasure of bringing the captain, 
whose musical talents I knew would be 
a great acquisition." 

u In the name of the committee I 
have to thank you for doing so, and to 
offer you welcome, sir," replied Percy. 
(Here the scraping was renewed.) 
I " But pray be seated — wont you 
I walk aft ? Captain, will you conduct 
Miss Taunton ? — Miss Briggs, will 
you allow me ? ' 

" Where could they have picked up 
that military man \ " inquired Mrs. 
Briggs of Miss Kate Briggs, as they 
j followed the little party. 

"I can't imagine," replied Miss 
Kate, bursting with vexation ; for the 
very fierce air with which the gallan: 
captain regarded the company, had 
impressed her with a high sense of his 
importance. 

Boat after boat came alongside, and 
guest after guest arrived. The invites 
had been excellently arranged : Mr. 
Percy Noakes having considered it as 
important that the number of young 
men should exactly tally with that of 
the young ladies, as that the quantity 
of knives on board should be in precise 
proportion to the forks. 

a Now, is every one on board ? " 
inquired Mr. Percy Noakes. The 
committee (who, with their bits of 
blue ribbon, looked as if they were all 



THE STEAM EXCURSION. 



241 



going to be bled) bustled about to 
ascertain the fact, and reported that 
they might safely start. 

" Go on ! " cried the master of the 
boat from the top of one of the paddle- 
boxes. 

" Go on ! " echoed the boy, who was 
stationed over the hatchway to pass the 
directions down to the engineer ; and 
away went the vessel with that agree- 
able noise which is peculiar to steamers, 
and which is composed of a mixture 
of creaking, gushing, clanging, and 
snorting. 

" Hoi — oi — oi — oi— oi — oi— o — i — i 
— i ! " shouted half-a-dozen voices 
from a boat, a quarter of a mile 
astern. 

u Ease her ! " cried the captain : 
u do these people belong to us, sir ? " 

" Noakes," exclaimed Hardy, who 
had been looking at every object, far 
and near, through the large telescope, 
"it's the Fleetwoods and the Wake- 
fields — and two children with them, by 
Jove ! " 

" What a shame to bring children ! " 
said everybody ; how very incon- 
siderate ! " 

"I say, it would be a good joke to 
pretend not to see 'em, wouldn't it ?" 
suggested Hardy, to the immense de- 
light of the company generally. A 
council of war was hastily held, and it 
was resolved that the new comers 
should be taken on board, on Mr. 
Hardy's solemnly pledging himself to 
tease the children during the whole 
of the day. 

" Stop her ! " cried the captain. 

" Stop her ' " repeated the boy ; 
whizz went the steam, and all the 
young ladies, as in duty bound, 
screamed in concert. They were only 
appeased by the assurance of the 
martial Helves, that the escape of 
steam consequent on stopping a vessel 
was seldom attended with any great 
loss of human life. 

Two men ran to the side ; and after 
some shouting, and swearing, and 
angling for the wherry with a boat- 
hook, Mr. Fleetwood, and Mrs. Fleet- 
wood, and Master Fleetwood, and Mr. 

No. 188. 



Wakefield, and Mrs. Wakefield, and 
Miss Wakefield, were safely, deposited 
on the deck. The girl was about six 
years old, the boy about four ; the 
former was dressed in a white frock 
with a pink sash and dog's-eared- 
looking little spencer : a straw bonnet 
and green veil, six inches by three and 
a half ; the latter, was attired for the 
occasion in a nankeen frock, between 
the bottom of which, and the top of his 
plaid socks, a considerable portion of 
two small mottled legs was discernible. 
He had a light blue cap with a gold 
band and tassel on his head, and a 
damp piece of gingerbread in his hand, 
with which he had slightly embossed 
his countenance. 

The boat once more started off ; the 
band played " Off she goes ; " the 
major part of the company conversed 
cheerfully in groups ; and the old gen- 
tlemen walked up and down the deck 
in pairs, as perseveringly and gravely 
as if they were doing a match against 
time for an immense stake. They ran 
briskly down the Pool ; the gentlemen 
pointed out the Docks, the Thames 
Police-office, and other elegant public 
edifices; and. the young ladies exhi- 
bited a proper display of horror at 
the appearance of the coal-whippers 
and ballast-heavers. Mr. Hardy told 
stories to the married ladies, at 
which they laughed very much in 
their pocket-handkerchiefs, and hit 
him on the knuckles with their fans, 
declaring him to be " a naughty man 
— a shocking creature" — and so forth; 
and Captain Helves gave slight de- 
scriptions of battles and duels, with 
a most bloodthirsty air, which made 
him the admiration of the women, and 
the envy of the men. Quadrilling 
commenced ; Captain Helves danced 
one set with Miss Emily Taunton, and 
another set with Miss Sophia Taunton. 
Mrs. Taunton was in ecstasies. The 
victory appeared to be complete ; but 
alas ! the inconstancy of man ! Having 
performed this necessary duty, he at- 
tached himself solely to Miss Julia 
Briggs, with whom he danced no less 
than three sets consecutively, and from 
: 16 



242 



SKETCHES BY BOZ 



whose side he evinced no intention 
of stirring for the remainder of the 
day. 

Mr. Hardy,having played one or two 
very brilliant fantasias on the Jews' - 
harp, and having frequently repeated 
the exquisitely amusing joke of slily 
chalking a large cross on the back of 
some member of the committee, Mr. 
Percy Noakes expressed his hope that 
some of their musical friends would 
oblige the company by a display of 
their abilities. 

" Perhaps," he said in a very insin- 
uating manner, " Captain Helves will 
oblige us ? " Mrs. Taunton's counte- 
nance lighted up, for the captain only 
sang duets, and couldn't sing them 
with anybody but one of her daughters. 

"Really," said that warlike indi- 
vidual, " I should be very happy, 
but—" 

" Oh ! pray do," cried all the young 
ladies. 

" Miss Sophia, have you any objec- 
tion to join in a duet ? " 

" Oh ! not the slightest," returned 
the young lady, in a tone which clearly 
showed she had the greatest possible 
objection. 

" Shall I accompany you, dear ? " 
inquired one of the Miss Briggses, 
with the bland intention of spoiling 
the effect, 

" Very much obliged to you, Miss 
Briggs," sharply retorted Mrs. Taun- 
ton, who saw through the manoeuvre ; 
"my daughters always sing without 
accompaniments." 

* And without voices," tittered Mrs. 
Briggs, in a low tone. 

a Perhaps," said Mrs. Taunton, red- 
dening, for she guessed the tenor of 
the observation, though she had not 
heard it clearly — "Perhaps it would 
be as well for some people, if their 
voices were not quite so audible as 
they are to other people." 

" And, perhaps, if gentlemen who 
are kidnapped to pay attention to 
some persons' daughters, had not suffi- 
cient discernment to pay attention to 
other persons' daughters," returned 
Mrs. Briggs, '* some persons would not 



be so ready to display that ill-temper 
which, thank God, distinguishes them 
from other persons." 

" Persons ! " ejaculated Mrs. Taun- 
ton. 

" Persons," replied Mrs. Briggs. 

" Insolence ! " 

" Creature ! " 

" Hush ! hush ! " interrupted Mr. 
Percy Noakes, who was one of the 
very few by whom this dialogue had 
been overheard. " Hush ! — pray, 
silence for the duet." 

After a great deal of preparatory 
crowing and humming, the captain 
began the following duet from the 
opera of " Paul and Virginia," in that 
grunting tone in which a man gets 
down, Heaven knows where, without 
the remotest chance of ever getting 
up again. This, in private circles, is 
frequently designated " a bass voice.'' 

" See (sung the captain) from o— ce— an ri- 
sing 
Bright flames the or— b of d— ay. 
From j'on gro — ove, the varied so — ongs — " 

Here, the singer was interrupted by 
varied cries of the most dreadful de- 
scription, proceeding from some grove 
in the immediate vicinity of the star- 
board paddle-box. 

" My child ! " screamed Mrs. Fleet- 
wood. " My child ! it is his voice — I 
know it." 

Mr. Fleetwood, accompanied by 
several gentlemen, here rushed to the 
quarter from whence the noise pro- 
ceeded, and an exclamation of horror 
burst from the company ; the general 
impression being, that the little inno- 
cent had either got his head in the 
water, or his legs in the machinery. 

" What is the matter \ " shouted the 
agonised father, as he returned with 
the child in his arms. 

" Oh ! oh ! oh ! " screamed the small 
sufferer again. 

" What is the matter, dear ? " in- 
quired the father once more — hastily 
stripping off the nankeen frock, for 
the purpose of ascertaining whether 
the child had one bone which was not 
smashed to pieces. 



THE STEAM EXCURSION. 



243 



" Oh ! oh ! — I'm so frightened ! " 

" What at, dear ?— what at 1 " said 
the mother, soothing the sweet infant. 

" Oh ! he 's been making such dread- 
ful faces at me," cried the boy, relapsing 
into convulsions at the bare recollection. 

" He ! — who ? " cried everybody, 
crowding round him. 

"Oh !— him ! " replied the child, 
pointing at Hardy, who affected to be 
the most concerned of the whole group. 

The real state of the case at once 
flashed upon the minds of all present, 
with the exception of the Fleetwoods 
and the Wakefields. The facetious 
Hardy, in fulfilment of his promise, 
had watched the child to a remote 
part of the vessel, and, suddenly ap- 
pearing before him with the most 
awful contortions of visage, had pro- 
duced his paroxysm of terror. Of 
course, he now observed that it was 
hardly necessary for him to deny the 
accusation ; and the unfortunate little 
victim was accordingly led below, after 
receiving sundry thumps on the head 
from both his parents, for having the 
wickedness to tell a story. 

This little interruption having been 
adjusted, the captain resumed, and 
Miss Emily chimed in, in due course. 
The duet was loudly applauded, and, 
certainly, the perfect independence of 
the parties deserved great commenda- 
tion. Miss Emily sung her part, with- 
out the slightest reference to the cap- 
tain ; and the captain sang so loud, that 
he had not the slightest idea what was 
being done by his partner. After hav- 
ing gone through the last few eighteen 
or nineteen bars by himself, therefore, 
he acknowledged the plaudits of the 
circle with that air of self-denial which 
men usually assume when they think 
they have done something to astonish 
the company. 

" Now," said Mr. Percy Noakes, 
who had just ascended from the fore- 
cabin, where he had been busily en- 
gaged in decanting the wine, " if the 
Misses Briggs will oblige us with some- 
thing before dinner, I am sure we shall 
be very much delighted." 

One of those hums of admiration 



followed the suggestion, which one fre- 
quently hears in society, when nobody 
has the most distant notion what he 
is expressing his approval of. The 
three Misses Briggs looked modestly 
at their mamma, and the mamma 
looked approvingly at her daughters, 
and Mrs. Taunton looked scornfully 
at all of them. The Misses Briggs 
asked for their guitars, and several 
gentlemen seriously damaged the cases 
in their anxiety to present them. 
Then, there was a very interesting 
production of three little keys for the 
aforesaid cases, and a melodramatic 
expression of horror at finding a string 
broken ; and a vast deal of screwing 
and tightening, and winding, and 
tuning, during which Mrs. Briggs ex- 
patiated to those near her on the 
immense difficulty of playing a guitar, 
and hinted at the wondrous proficiency 
of her daughters in tkat mystic art. 
Mrs. Taunton whispered to a neigh- 
bour that it was " quite sickening.!" 
and the Misses Taunton looked as if 
they knew how to play, but disdained 
to do it. 

At length, the Misses Briggs began 
in real earnest. It was a new Spanish 
composition, for three voices and three 
guitars. The effect was electrical. All 
eyes were turned upon the captain, 
who was reported to have once passed 
through Spain with his regiment, and 
who must be well acquainted with the 
national music. He was in raptures. 
This was sufficient ; the trio was en- 
cored ; the applause was universal ; 
and never had the Tauntons suffered 
such a complete defeat. 

" Bravo ! bravo ! " ejaculated the 
captain ; — "Bravo !" 

" Pretty ! isn't it, sir ? " inquired 
Mr. Samuel Briggs, with the air of a 
self- satisfied showman. By-the-by, 
these were the first words he had been 
heard to utter since he left Boswell- 
court the evening before. 

" De — lightful ! " returned the cap- 
tain, with a flourish, and a military 
cough ; — « de— lightful ! " 

" Sweet instrument ? " said an old 
gentleman with a bald head, who had 
k2 



244 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



been trying all the morning to look 
through a telescope, inside the glass of 
which Mr. Hardy had fixed a large 
black wafer. 

" Did you ever hear a Portuguese 
tamborine?" inquired that jocular 
individual. 

"Did you ever hear a tom-tom, 
sir ? " sternly inquired the captain, 
who lost no opportunity of showing off 
his travels, real or pretended. 

" A what ? : ' asked Hardy, rather 
taken aback. 

" A tom-tom." 

" Never ! " 

" Nor a gum-gum \ " 

" Never ! " 

(i What is a gum-gum ? " eagerly 
inquired several young ladies. 

" When I was in the East Indies," 
replied the captain. (Here was a disco- 
very — he had been in the East Indies !) 
— " when I was in the East Indies, I 
was once stopping, a few thousand miles 
up the country, on a visit at the house 
of a very particular friend of mine, 
Ram Chowdar Doss Azuph Al Bowlar 
— a devilish pleasant fellow. As we 
were enjoying our hookahs, one even- 
ing, in the cool verandah in front of 
his villa, we were rather surprised by 
the sudden appearance of thirty-four 
of his Kit-ma-gars (for he had rather 
a large establishment there), accom- 
panied by an equal number of Con-su- 
mars, approaching the house with a 
threatening aspect, and beating a tom- 
tom. The Ram started up " 

" Who I " inquired the bald gentle- 
man, intensely interested. 

" The Ram— Ram Chowdar—" 

" Oh ! " said the old gentleman, " 1 
beg your pardon ; pray go on." 

" — Started up and drew a pistol. 
e Helves,' said he, ' my boy,' — he 
always called me, my boy — ' Helves,' 
said he, ' do you hear that tom-tom ? ' 
6 I do,' said I. His countenance, 
which before was pale, assumed a most 
frightful appearance ; his whole visage 
was distorted, and his frame shaken 
by violent emotions. ' Do you see that 
gum-gum ? ' said he. ' No,' said I, 
staring about me. 'You don't V said 



he. < No, I '11 be damned if I do,' said 
I ; ' and what 's more, I don't know 
what a gum-gum is,' said I. I really 
thought the Ram would have dropped. 
He drew me aside, and with an expres- 
sion of agony I shall never forget, said 
in a low whisper " 

"Dinner's on the table, ladies," 
interrupted the steward's wife, 

" Will you allow me ? " said the 
captain, immediately suiting the action 
to the word, and escorting Miss Julia 
Briggs to the cabin, with as much ease 
as if he had finished the story. 

" What an extraordinary circum- 
stance ! " ejaculated the same old 
gentleman, preserving his listening 
attitude. 

" What a traveller ! " said the 
young ladies. 

" What a singularname !" exclaimed 
the gentlemen, rather confused by the 
coolness of the whole affair. 

"I wish he had finished the story," 
said an old lady. " I wonder what a 
gum-gum really is ? " 

" By Jove ! " exclaimed Hardy, who 
until now had been lost in utter amaze- 
ment, " I don't know what it may be 
in India, but in England I think a gum- 
gum has very much the same meaning 
as a hum-bug." 

" How illiberal ! how envious ! " 
cried everybody, as they made for the 
cabin, fully impressed with a belief in 
the captain's amazing adventures. 
Helves was the sole lion for the 
remainder of the day — impudence and 
the marvellous are pretty sure pass- 
ports to any society. 

The party had by this time reached 
theh- destination, and put about on 
their return home. The wind, which 
had been with them the whole day, 
was now directly in their teeth ; the 
weather had become gradually more 
and more overcast ; and the sky, 
water, and shore, were all of that dull, 
heavy, uniform lead-colour, which 
house-painters daub in the first instance 
over a street-door which is gradually 
approaching a state of convalescence. 
It had been " spitting " with rain for 
the last half-hour, and now began to 



■■ 



THE STEAM EXCURSION. 



241 



pour in good earnest. The wind was 
freshening very fast, and the waterman 
at the wheel had unequivocally ex- 
pressed his opinion that there would 
shortly he a squall. A slight emotion 
on the part of the vessel, now and 
then, seemed to suggest the possibility 
of its pitching to a very uncomfortable 
extent in the event of its blowing 
harder ; and every timber began to 
creak, as if the boat were an overladen 
clothes-basket. Sea-sickness, however, 
is like a belief in ghosts — every one 
entertains some misgivings on the 
subject, but few will acknowledge 
any. The majority of the company, 
therefore, endeavoured to look pecu- 
liarly happy, feeling all the while 
especially miserable. 

" Don't it rain % " inquired the old 
gentleman before noticed, when, by 
dint of squeezing and jamming, they 
were all seated at table. 

" I think it does — a little," replied 
Mr. Percy Noakes, who could hardly 
hear himself speak, in consequence 
of the pattering on the deck. 

" Don't it blow ? " inquired some 
one else. 

" No — I don't think it does," re- 
sponded Hardy, sincerely wishing that 
he could persuade himself that it did 
not ; for he sat near the door, and was 
almost blown off his seat. 

" It '11 soon clear up," said Mr. 
Percy Noakes, in a cheerful tone. 

" Oh, certaiidy ! " ejaculated the 
oommittee generally. 

" No doubt of it ! " said the remainder 
of the company, whose attention was 
now pretty well engrossed by the 
serious business of eating, carving, 
taking wine, and so forth. 

The throbbing motion of the engine 
was but too perceptible. There was 
a large, substantial, cold boiled leg of 
mutton, at the bottom of the table, 
shaking like blanc-mange ; a previously 
hearty sirloin of beef looked as if it 
had been suddenly seized with the 
palsy ; and some tongues, which were 
placed on dishes rather too large for 
them, went through the most sur- 
prising evolutions ; darting from side 



to side, and from end to end, like a 
fly in an inverted wine-glass. Then, 
the sweets shook and trembled, till it 
was quite impossible to help them, and 
people gave up the attempt in despair; 
and the pigeon-pies looked as if the 
birds, whose legs were stuck outside, 
were trying to get them in. The table 
vibrated and started like a feverish 
pulse, and the very legs were con- 
vulsed — everything was shaking and 
jarring. The beams in the roof of 
the cabin seemed as if they were put 
there for the sole purpose of giving 
people headaches, and several elderly 
gentlemen became ill-tempered in con- 
sequence. As fast as the steward put 
the fire-irons up, they would fall down 
again ; and the more the ladies and 
gentleman tried to sit comfortably on 
their seats, the more the seats seemed 
to slide away from the ladies and gen- 
tlemen. Several ominous demands 
were made for small glasses of brandy; 
the countenances of the company 
gradually underwent most extraordi- 
nary changes ; one gentleman was ob- 
served suddenly to rush from table 
without the slightest ostensible reason, 
and dart up the steps with incredible 
swiftness : thereby greatly damaging 
both himself and the steward, who hap- 
pened to be coming down at the same 
moment. 

The cloth was removed ; the dessert 
was laid on the table ; and the glasses 
were filled. The motion of the boat 
increased ; several members of the 
party began to feel rather vague and 
misty, and looked as if they had only 
just got up. The young gentleman 
with the spectacles, who had been in a 
fluctuating state for some time — at one 
moment bright, and at another dismal, 
like a revolving light on the sea-coast 
— rashly announced his wish to pro- 
pose a toast. After several ineffectual 
attempts to preserve his perpendicular, 
the young gentleman, having managed 
to hook himself to the centre leg of 
the table with his left hand, proceeded 
as follows : 

" Ladies and gentlemen. A gentle- 
man is among us — I may say a stranger 



246 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



— (here some painful thought seemed 
to strike the orator ; he paused, and 
looked extremely odd) whose talents, 
whose travels, whose cheerfulness — " 

"I beg your pardon, Edkins," hastily 
interrupted Mr. Percy Noakes. — 
u Hardy, what 's the matter ? " 

66 Nothing," replied the " funny gen- 
tleman," who had just life enough left 
to utter two consecutive syllables. 

" Will you have some brandy ? " 

"No ! " replied Hardy in a tone of 
great indignation, and looking as com- 
fortable as Temple-bar in a Scotch 
mist ; " what should I want brandy 
for ? " 

" Will you go on deck ? " 

" No, I will not." This was said 
with a most determined air, and in a 
voice which might have been taken 
for an imitation of anything ; it was 
quite as much like a guinea-pig as a 
bassoon. 

" I beg your pardon, Edkins," said 
the courteous Percy ; " I thought our 
friend was ill. Pray go on." 

A pause. 

" Pray go on." 

" Mr. Edkins is gone," cried some- 
body. 

" I beg your pardon, sir," said the 
steward, running up to Mr. Percy 
Noakes, " I beg your pardon, sir, but 
the gentleman as just went on deck — 
him with the green spectacles — is 
uncommon bad, to be sure ; and the 
young man as played the wiolin says, 
that unless he has some brandy he 
can't answer for the consequences. 
He says he has a wife and two chil- 
dren, whose werry subsistence de- 
pends on his breaking a wessel, and 
he expects to do so every moment. 
The flageolet's been wery ill, but he 's 
better, only he 's in a dreadful prus- 
peration." 

All disguise was now useless ; the 
company staggered on deck ; the gen- 
tlemen tried to see nothing but the 
clouds; and the ladies, muffled up in such 
shawls and cloaks as they had brought 
with them, lay about on the seats, and 
under the seats, in the most wretched 
condition. Never was such a blowing, 



and raining, and pitching, and tossing, 
endured by any pleasure party before. 
Several remonstrances were sent down 
below, on the subject of Master Fleet- 
wood, but they were totally unheeded in 
consequence of the indisposition of his 
natural protectors. That interesting 
child screamed at the top of his voice, 
until he had no voice left to scream 
with ; and then, Miss Wakefield be- 
gan, and screamed for the remainder 
of the passage. 

Mr. Hardy was observed, some hours 
afterwards,in an attitude which induced 
his friends to suppose that he was 
busily engaged in contemplating the 
beauties of the deep ; they only re- 
gretted that his taste for the picturesque 
should lead him to remain so long in a 
position, very injurious at all times, 
but especially so, to an individual la- 
bouring under a tendency of blood to 
the head. 

The party arrived off the Custom- 
house at about two o'clock on the 
Thursday morning, dispirited and 
worn out. The Tauntons were too ill 
to quarrel with the Briggses, and the 
Briggses were too wretched to annoy 
the Tauntons. One of the guitar-cases 
was lost on its passage to a hackney- 
coach, and Mrs. Briggs has not 
scrupled to state that the Tauntons 
bribed a porter to throw it down an 
area. Mr. Alexander Briggs opposes 
vote by ballot — he says from personal 
experience of its inefficacy ; and Mr- 
Samuel Briggs, whenever he is asked 
to express his sentiments on the point, 
says he has no opinion on that or any 
other subject. 

Mr. Edkins — the young gentleman 
in the green spectacles — makes a 
speech on every occasion on which a 
speech can possibly be made : the elo- 
quence of which can only be equalled 
by its length. In the event of his not 
being previously appointed to a judge- 
ship, it is probable that he will practise 
as a barrister in the New Central 
Criminal Court. 

Captain Helves continued his atten- 
tion to Miss Julia Briggs, whom he 
might possibly have espoused, if it 



THE STEAM EXCURSION. 



247 



had not unfortunately happened that 
Mr. Samuel arrested him, in the way 
of business, pursuant to instructions 
received from Messrs. Scroggins and 
Payne, whose town-debts the gallant 
captain had condescended to collect, but 
whose accounts, with the indiscretion 
sometimes peculiar to military minds, 
he had omitted to keep with that dull 



accuracy which custom has rendered 
necessary. Mrs. Taunton complains 
that she has been much deceived in 
him. He introduced himself to the 
family on board a Gravesend steam- 
packet, and certainly, therefore, ought 
to have proved respectable. 

Mr. Percy Noakes is as light-hearted 
and careless as ever. 



243 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE GREAT WINGLEBURY DUEL. 



The little town of Great Winglebury 
is exactly forty-two miles and three 
quarters from Hyde Park corner. It 
has a long, straggling, quiet High- 
street, with a great black and white 
clock at a small red Town-hall, half- 
way up — a market-place — a cage — an 
assembly-room — a church — a bridge 
— a chapel — a theatre — a library — an 
inn — a pump — and a Post-office. Tra- 
dition tells of a " Little Winglebury," 
down some cross-road about two miles 
off ; and, as a square mass of dirty 
paper, supposed to have been originally 
intended for a letter, with certain 
tremulous characters inscribed thereon, 
in which a lively imagination might 
trace a remote resemblance to the 
word " Little," was once stuck up to 
be owned in the sunny window of the 
Great Winglebury Post-office, from 
which it only disappeared when it fell to 
pieces with dust and extreme old age, 
there would appear to be some founda- 
tion for the legend. Common belief 
is inclined to bestow the name upon a 
little hole at the end of a muddy lane 
about a couple of miles long, colonised 
by one wheelwright, four paupers, and 
a beer-shop ; but, even this authority, 
slight as it is, must be regarded with 
extreme suspicion, inasmuch as the 
inhabitants of the hole aforesaid, con- 
cur in opining that it never had any 
name at all, from the earliest ages 
down to the present day. 

The Winglebury Arms, in the centre 
of the High-street, opposite the small 
building with the big clock, is the 
principal inn of Great Winglebury' — 
the commercial inn, posting-house, 
and excise-office ; the " Blue " house 
at every election, and the Judges' 
house at every assizes. It is the 
head-quarters of the Gentlemen's 
Whist Club of Winglebury Blues (so 
called in opposition to the Gentlemen's 



Whist Club of Winglebury Buffs, 
held at the other house, a little further 
down) ; and whenever a juggler, or 
wax- work man, or concert-giver, takes 
Great Winglebury in his circuit, it is 
immediately placarded all over the 
town that Mr. So-and-so, " trusting to 
that liberal support which the inha- 
bitants of Great Winglebury have 
long been so liberal in bestowing, has 
at a great expense engaged the elegant 
and commodious assembly-rooms, 
attached to the Winglebury Arms." 
The house is a large one, with a red 
brick and stone front ; a pretty 
spacious hall, ornamented with ever- 
green plants, terminates in a perspec- 
tive view of the bar, and a glass case, 
in which are displayed a choice variety 
of delicacies ready for dressing, to 
catch the eye of a new-comer the 
moment he enters, and excite his 
appetite to the highest possible pitch. 
Opposite doors lead to the " coffee " 
and " commercial " rooms ; and a 
great wide, rambling staircase, — three 
stairs and a landing — four stairs and 
another landing — one step and another 
landing — half-a-dozen stairs and ano- 
ther Ian ding — and so on — conducts to 
galleries of bedrooms, and labyrinths 
of sitting-rooms, denominated "pri- 
vate," where you may enjoy your- 
self, as privately as you can in any 
place where some bewildered being 
walks into your room every five 
minutes, by mistake, and then walks 
out again, to open all the doors along 
the gallery until he finds his own. 

Such is the Winglebury Arms, at 
this day, and such was the Winglebury 
Arms some time since — no matter 
when — two or three minutes before 
the arrival of the London stage. Four 
horses with cloths on — change for a 
coach — were standing quietly at the 
corner of the yard, surrounded by a 



THE GREAT WINGLEBURY DUEL. 



249 



listless group of post-boys in shiny hats 
and smock-frocks, engaged in discus- 
sing the merits of the cattle ; half a 
dozen ragged boys were standing a 
little apart, listening with evident 
interest to the conversation of these 
worthies ; and a few loungers were col- 
lected round the horse-trough, awaiting 
the arrival of the coach. 

The day was hot and sunny, the 
town in the zenith of its dulness, and 
with the exception of these few idlers, 
not a living creature was to be seen. 
Suddenly, the loud notes of a key- 
bugle broke the monotonous stillness 
of the street ; in came the coach, 
rattling over the uneven paving with 
a noise startling enough to stop even 
the large-faced clock itself. Down got 
the outsides, up went the windows in 
all directions, out came the waiters, 
up started the ostlers, and the loungers, 
and the post-boys, and the ragged boys, 
as if they were electrified — unstrap- 
ping, and unchaining, and unbuckling, 
and dragging willing horses out, and 
forcing reluctant horses in, and making 
a most exhilarating bustle. "Lady 
inside, here !" said the guard. "Please 
to alight, ma'am," said the waiter. 
" Private sitting-room I " interrogated 
the lady. " Certainly, ma'am," re- 
sponded the chambermaid. " Nothing 
but these 'ere trunks, ma'am ? " in- 
quired the guard. " Nothing more,' 1 
replied the lady. Up got the outsides 
again, and the guard, and the coach- 
man ; off came the cloths, with a jerk, 
" All right " was the cry ; and away 
they went. The loungers lingered 
a minute or two in the road, watching 
the coach until it turned the corner, 
and then loitered away one by one. 
The street was clear again, and the 
town, by contrast, quieter than ever." 

" Lady in number twenty- five," 
screamed the landlady. — "Thomas I" 

" Yes, ma'am." 

" Letter just been left for the gen- 
tleman in number nineteen. Boots at 
the Lion left it. No answer." 

" Letter for you, sir," said Thomas, 
depositing the letter on number nine- 
teen's table. 



" For me V said number nineteen, 
turning from the window, out of Avhich 
he had been surveying the scene just 
described. 

" Yes, sir," — (waiters always speak 
in hints, and never utter complete sen- 
tences,) — "yes, sir, — Boots at the 
Lion, sir — Bar, sir — Missis said number 
nineteen, sir — Alexander Trott, Esq., 



sir ? — Your card at the 



sir, I 



think, sir 2 " 

" My name is Trott," replied number 
nineteen, breaking the seal. " You ' 
may go, waiter." The waiter pulled 
down the window-blind, and then pulled 
it up again — for a regular waiter must 
do something before he leaves the 
room — adjusted the glasses on the 
sideboard, brushed a place that was 
not dusty, rubbed his hands very hard, 
walked stealthily to the door, and 
evaporated. 

There was, evidently, something in 
the contents of the letter, of a nature, 
if not wholly unexpected, certainly 
extremely disagreeable. Mr. Alex- 
ander Trott laid it down, and took 
it up again, and walked about the 
room on particular squares of the 
carpet,and even attempted, though un- 
successfully, to whistle an air. It 
wouldn't do. He threw himself into a 
chair and read the following epistle 
aloud : — 

" Blue Lion and Stomach-warmer, 
Great Winglebury. 

Wednesday Morning. 

" Sir. Immediately on discovering 
your intentions, I left our counting- 
house, and followed you. I know the 
purport of your j ourney ; — that j ourney 
shall never be completed. 

" I have no friend here, just now, on 
whose secresy I can rely. This shall 
be no obstacle to my revenge. Neither 
shall Emily Brown be exposed to the 
mercenary solicitations of a scoundrel, 
odious in her eyes, and contemptible 
in every body else's : nor will I tamely 
submit to the clandestine attacks of a 
base umbrella-maker. 

" Sir. From Great Winglebury 
church, a footpath leads through four 



250 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



meadows to a retired spot known to | 
the townspeople as Stiffun's Acre. " j 
[Mr. Trott shuddered.] " I shall be ; 
waiting there alone, at twenty minutes 
before six o'clock to-morrow morning. 
Should I be disappointed in seeing you 
there, I will do myself the pleasure of 
calling with a horsewhip. 

" Horace Hunter. 

" PS. There is a gunsmith's in the 
High-street ; and they won't sell gun- 
powder after dark — you understand me. 

" PPS. You had better not order 
your breakfast in the morning until you 
hare met me. It may be an unneces- 
sary expense." 

a Desperate-minded villain ! I knew 
how it would be ! " ejaculated the ter- 
rified Trott. "I always told father, 
that once start me on this expedition, 
and Hunter would pursue me like the 
Wandering Jew. It 's bad enough as 
it is, to marry with the old people's 
commands, and without the girl's 
consent ; but what will Emily think of 
me, if I go down there, breathless with 
running away from this infernal sala- 
mander ? What shall I do ? What 
can I do \ If I go back to the city, 
I 'm disgraced for ever — lose the girl — 
and, what 's more, lose the money too. 
Even if I did go on to the Browns' by 
the coach, Hunter would be after me in 
a post-chaise ; and if I go to this place, 
this Stiffun's Acre (another shudder), 
I 'm as good as dead. I 've seen him 
hit the man at the Pall-mall shooting- 
gallery, in the second button-hole of 
the waistcoat, five times out of every 
six, and when he didn't hit him there, 
he hit him in the head." With this 
consolatory reminiscence, Mr. Alex- 
ander Trott again ejaculated, " What 
shall I do?" 

Long and weary were his reflec- 
tions, as, burying his face in his hands, 
he sat ruminating on the best course to 
be pursued. His mental direction- 
post pointed to London. He thought 
of "the governor's" anger, and the 
loss of the fortune which the paternal 
Brown had promised the paternal 
Trott his daughter should contribute 



to the coffers of his son. Then the 
words " To Brown's " were legibly in- 
scribed on the said direction-post, but 
Horace Hunter's denunciation rung in 
his ears ; — last of all it bore, in red 
letters, the words, •* To Stiffun's 
Acre ;" and then Mr. Alexander Trott 
decided on adopting a plan which he 
presently matured. 

First and foremost, he despatched 
the under-boots to the Blue Lion and 
Stomach-warmer, with a gentlemanly 
note to Mr. Horace Hunter, intimating 
that he thirsted for his destruction and 
would do himself the pleasure of slaugh- 
tering him next morning, without fail. 
He then wrote another letter, and re- 
quested the attendance of the other 
boots— for they kept a pair. A modest 
knock at the room- door was heard. 
" Come in," said Mr. Trott. A man 
thrust in a red head with one eye in it, 
and being again desired to " come in," 
brought in the body and the legs to 
which the head belonged, and a fur cap 
which belonged to the head. 

" You are the upper-boots, I think ? " 
inquired Mr. Trott. 

" Yes, I am the upper-boots," re- 
plied a voice from inside a velveteen 
case with mother-of-pearl buttons — 
" that is, I 'm the boots as b'longs to 
the house ; the other man's my man, 
as goes errands and does odd jobs. 
Top-boots and half-boots, I calls us." 

'* You 're from London ? " inquired 
Mr. Trott. 

'•' Driv a cab once," was the laconic 
reply. 

" Why don't you drive it now ? " 
asked Mr. Trott. 

" Over-driv the cab, and driv over 
a 'ooman," replied the top-boots, with 
brevity. 

" Do you know the mayor's house ?" 
inquired Trott. 

" Rather," replied the boots, sig- 
nificantly, as if he had some good 
reason to remember it. 

" Do you think you could manage to 
leave a letter there ?" interrogated 
Trott. 

" Shouldn't wonder," responded 
boots. 



THE GREAT WINGLEBURY DUEL. 



" But this letter," said Trott, holding 
a deformed note with a paralytic direc- 
tion in one hand, and five shillings in 
the other — " this letter is anonymous." 

" A — what ? " interrupted the boots. 

"Anonymous — he's not to know 
who it comes from." 

"Oh ! I see," responded the reg'lar, 
with a knowing wink, but without 
evincing the slightest disinclination to 
undertake the charge — " I see — bit o' 
Sving, eh % " and his one eye wandered 
round the room, as if in quest of a dark 
lantern and phosphorus-box. " But, 
I say ! " he continued, recalling the eye 
from its search, and bringing it to bear 
on Mr. Trott. " I say, he 's a lawyer, 
our mayor, and insured in the County. 
If you 've a spite agen him, you 'd 
better not burn his house down — 
blessed if I don't think it would be the 
greatest favour you could do him." 
And he chuckled inwardly. 

If Mr. Alexander Trott had been hi 
any other situation, his first act would 
have been to kick the man down stairs 
by deputy ; or, in other words, to ring 
the bell, and desire the landlord to 
take his boots off. He contented him- 
self, however, with doubling the fee 
and explaining that the letter merely 
related to a breach of the peace. The 
top-boots retired, solemnly pledged to 
secresy ; and Mr. Alexander Trott 
sat down to a fried sole, maintenon 
cutlet, Madeira, and sundries, with 
greater composure than he had expe- 
rienced since the receipt of Horace 
Hunter's letter of defiance. 

The lady who alighted from the 
London coach had no sooner been in- 
stalled in number twenty-five, and 
made some alteration in her travelling- 
dress, than she indited a note to Joseph 
Overton, esquire, solicitor, and mayor 
of Great Winglebury, requesting his 
immediate attendance on private busi- 
ness of paramount importance — a sum- 
mons which that worthy functionary 
lost no time in obeying ; for after 
sundry openings of his eyes, divers 
ejaculations of " Bless me ! " and other 
manifestations of surprise, he took his 
broad-brimmed hat from its accus- 



tomed peg in his little front office, and 
walked briskly down the High-street 
to the Winglebury Arms ; through the 
hall and up the staircase of which esta- 
blishment he was ushered by the land- 
lady, and a crowd of officious waiters, 
to the door of number twenty-five. 

" Show the gentleman in," said the 
stranger lady, in reply to the foremost 
waiter's announcement. The gentle- 
man was shown in accordingly. 

The lady rose from the sofa ; the. 
mayor advanced a step from the door ; 
and there they both paused,for a minute 
or two, looking at one another as if by 
mutual consent. The mayor saw before 
him a buxom richly-dressed female 
of about forty ; the lady looked upon 
a sleek man, about ten years older, in 
drab shorts and continuations, black 
coat, neckcloth, and gloves. 

" Miss Julia Manners ! " exclaimed 
the mayor at length, "you astonish me." 

" That 's very unfair of you, Overton," 
replied Miss Julia, " for I have known 
you, long enough, not to be surprised at 
anything you do, and you might extend 
equal courtesy to me." 

" But to run away — actually run 
away — with a young man ! " remon- 
strated the mayor. 

" You wouldn't have me actually 
run away with an old one, I presume?" 
was the cool rejoinder. 

" And then to ask me — me — of all 
people in the world — a man of my age 
and appearance — mayor of the town — 
to promote such a scheme ! " pettishly 
ejaculated Joseph Overton ; throwing 
himself into an arm-chair, and pro- 
ducing Miss Julia's letter from his 
pocket, as if to corroborate the asser- 
tion that he had been asked. 

" Now, Overton," replied the lady, 
" I want your assistance in this matter, 
and I must have it. In the lifetime of 
that poor old dear, Mr. CornberrVj 
who — who — " 

" Who was to have married you, and 
didn't, because he died first ; and who 
left you his property unencumbered 
with the addition of himself," suggested 
the mayor. 

" Well," replied Miss Julia, red- 



252 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



dening slightly, " in the lifetime of the 
poor old dear, the property had the 
incumbrance of your management ; 
and all I will say of that, is, that 1 only 
wonder it didn't die of consumption in- 
stead of its master. You helped your- 
self then: — help me now." 

Mr. Joseph Overton was a man of 
the world, and an attorney ; and as 
certain indistinct recollections of an 
odd thousand pounds or two, appro- 
priated by mistake, passed across his 
mind, he hemmed deprecatingly, 
smiled blandly, remained silent for a 
few seconds ; and finally inquired, 
'• What do you wish me to do 1 " 

" I '11 tell you," replied Miss Julia — 
"I'll tell you in three words. Dear 
Lord Peter — " 

" That 's the young man, I sup- 
pose — " interrupted the mayor. 

" That 's the young Nobleman," re- 
plied the lady, with a great stress on 
the last word. " Dear Lord Peter is 
considerably afraid of the resentment 
of his family ; and we have therefore 
thought it hetter to make the match a 
stolen one. He left town, to avoid sus- 
picion, on a visit to his friend, the 
Honourable Augustus Flair, whose 
seat, as you know, is about thirty miles 
from this, accompanied only by his 
favourite tiger. We arranged that I 
should come here alone in the London 
coach : and that he, leaving his tiger 
and cab behind him, should come on, 
and arrive here as soon as possible 
this afternoon." 

" Very well," observed Joseph 
Overton, " and then he can order the 
chaise, and you can go on to Gretna 
Green together, without requiring the 
presence or interference of a third 
party, can't you ?" 

"No," replied Miss Julia. "We 
have every reason to believe — dear 
Lord Peter not heing considered very 
prudent or sagacious by his friends, 
and they having discovered his attach- 
ment to me — that, immediately on his 
absence being observed, pursuit will be 
made in this direction : to elude which, 
and to prevent our being traced, I wish 
it to be understood in this house, that 



dear Lord Peter is slightly deranged, 
though perfectly harmless ; and that 
I am, unknown to him, awaiting his 
arrival to convey him in a post-chaise 
to a private asylum — at Berwick, say. 
If I don't show myself much, I dare 
say I can manage to pass for his 
mother." 

The thought occurred to the mayor's 
mind that the lady might show herself 
a good deal without fear of detection ; 
seeing that she was about double the 
age of her intended husband. He said 
nothing, however, and the lady pro- 
ceeded. 

" With the whole of this arrange- 
ment dear Lord Peter is acquainted ; 
and all I want you to do, is, to make 
the delusion more complete by giving 
it the sanction of your influence in this 
place, and assigning this as a reason 
to the people of the house for my 
taking the young gentleman away. As 
it would not he consistent with the 
story that I should see him until after 
he has entered the chaise, I also wish 
you to communicate with him, and 
inform him that it is all going on 
well." 

" Has he arrived ? " inquired Over- 
ton. 

" I don't know," replied the lady. 

" Then how am I to know !" in- 
quired the mayor. " Of course he 
will not give his own name at the 
har." 

" I begged him, immediately on his 
arrival, to write you a note," replied 
Miss Manners ; " and to prevent the 
possibility of our project being dis- 
covered through its means, I desired 
him to write anonymously, and in 
mysterious terms to acquaint you with 
the number of his room." 

a Bless me ! " exclaimed the mayor, 
rising from his seat, and searching his 
pockets — a most extraordinary cir- 
cumstance — he has arrived — mys- 
terious note left at my house in a 
most mysterious manner, just before 
yours — didn't know what to make of 
it before, and certainly shouldn't have 
attended to it. — Oh ! here it is." And 
Joseph Overton pulled out of an inner 



THE GREAT WINGLEBURY DUEL. 



253 



coat-pocket the identical letter penned 
by Alexander Trott. " Is this his lord- 
ship's hand ? " 

" Oh yes," replied Julia ; " good, 
punctual creature ! I have not seen 
it more than once or twice, but I know 
he writes very badly and very large. 
Thsse dear, wild young noblemen, you 
know, Overton — " 

" Ay, ay, I see," replied the mayor. 
— " Horses and dogs, play and wine — 
grooms, actresses, and cigars — the 
stable, the green-room, the saloon, 
and the tavern ; and the legislative 
assembly at last." 

" Here's what he says," pursued 
the mayor ; " « Sir, — A young gentle- 
man in number nineteen at the Win- 
glebury Arms, is bent on committing 
a rash act to-morrow morning at an 
early hour.' (That's good — he means 
marrying.) ' If you have any regard 
for the peace of this town, or the pre- 
servation of one — it may be two — 
human lives' — What the deuce does 
he mean by that ? " 

" That he 's so anxious for the cere- 
mony, he will expire if it 's put off, 
and that I may possibly do the same," 
replied the lady with great compla- 
cency. 

" Oh ! I see — not much fear of that ; 
— well — 'two human lives, you will 
cause him to be removed to-night.' 
(He wants to start at once.) < Fear 
not to do this on your responsibility : 
for to-morrow the absolute necessity 
of the proceeding will be but too ap- 
parent. Remember : number nine- 
teen. The name is Trott. No delay ; 
for life and death depend upon your 
promptitude.' Passionate language, 
certainly. Shall I see him ? " 

" Do," replied Miss Julia ; and en- 
treat him to act his part well. I am 
half afraid of him. Tell him to be 
cautious." 

" I will," said the mayor. 

" Settle all the arrangements." 

" I will," said the mayor again. 

" And say I think the chaise had 
better be ordered for one o'clock." 

" Very well," said the mayor once 
more ; and, ruminating on the absur- 



dity of the situation in which fate and 
old acquaintance had placed him, he 
desired a waiter to herald his approach 
to the temporary representative of 
number nineteen. 

The announcement, " Gentleman 
to speak with you, sir," induced Mr. 
Trott to pause half-way in the glass 
of port, the contents of which he was 
in the act of imbibing at the moment ; 
to rise from his chair ; and retreat a 
few paces towards the window, as if 
to secure a retreat, in the event of the 
visitor assuming the form and appear- 
ance of Horace Hunter. One glance 
at Joseph Overton, however, quieted 
his apprehensions. He courteously 
motioned the stranger to a seat. The 
waiter, after a little jingling with the 
decanter and glasses, consented to 
leave the room ; and Joseph Overton, 
placing the broad-brimmed hat on the 
chair next him, and bending Ins body 
gently forward, opened the business by 
saying in a very low and cautious tone, 

" My lord—" 

"Eh?" said Mr. Alexander Trott, 
in a loud key, with the vacant and 
mystified stare of a chilly somnam- 
bulist. 

" Hush — hush !" said the cautious 
attorney : " to be sure — quite right — 
no titles here — my name is Overton, 
sir." 

"Overton?" 

" Yes : the mayor of this place — ■ 
you sent me a letter with anonymous 
information, this afternoon." 

" I, sir ? " exclaimed Trott with ill- 
dissembled surprise ; for, coward as 
he was, he would willingly have repu- 
diated the authorship of the letter in 
question. " I, sir ? " 

" Yes, you, sir ; did you not ? " re- . 
sponded Overton, annoyed with what 
he supposed to be an extreme degree 
of unnecessary suspicion. " Either 
this letter is yours, or it is not. If it 
be, we can converse securely upon the 
subject at once. If it be not, of 
course I have no more to say." 

"Stay, stay," said Trott, "it is 
mine ; I did write it. What could I 
do, sir ? I had no friend here." 



254 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



" To be sure, to be sure," said the 
mayor, encouragingly, " you could uot 
have managed it better. Well, sir ; it 
will be necessary for you to leave here 
to-night in a post-chaise and four. 
And the harder the boys drive, the 
better. You are not safe from pur- 
suit." 

" Bless me ! " exclaimed Trott, in 
an agony of apprehension, " can such 
things happen in a country like this ? 
Such unrelenting and cold-blooded 
hostility ! " He wiped off the concen- 
trated essence of cowardice that was 
oozing fast down his forehead, and 
looked aghast at Joseph Overton. 

** It certainly is a very hard case," 
replied the mayor with a smile, " that, 
in a free country, people can't marry 
whom they like, without being hunted 
down as if they were criminals. How- 
ever, in the present instance the lady 
is willing, you know, and that's the 
main point, after all." 

u Lady willing ! " repeated Trott, 
mechanically. " How do you know 
the lady's willing ? " 

" Come, that 's a good one," said the 
mayor, benevolently tapping Mr. Trott 
on the arm with his broad-brimmed 
hat ; " I have known her, well, for a 
long time ; and if anybody could en- 
tertain the remotest doubt on the sub- 
ject, I assure you I have none, nor 
need you have." 

" Dear me ! " said Mr. Trott, rumi- 
nating. This is very extraordinary ! " 

" Well, Lord Peter," said the mayor, 
rising. 

" Lord Peter 1 " repeated Mr. Trott. 

"Oh— ah, I forgot. Mr. Trott, 
then — Trott — very good, ha ! ha ! — 
Well, sir, the chaise shall be ready at 
half-past twelve." 

a And what is to become of me until 
then ? " inquired Mr. Trott, anxiously. 
"Wouldn't it save appearances, if 
I were placed under some re- 
straint \ " 

" Ah !" replied Overton, "very good 
thought — capital idea indeed. I '11 
send somebody up directly. And if 
you make a little resistance when we 
put you in the chaise it would'nt be 



amiss — look as if you didn't want to 
be taken awav, you know." 

" To be sure," said Trott—" to be 
sure." 

" Well, my lord," said Overton, in 
a low tone, " until then, I wish your 
lordship a good evening." 

"Lord — lordship ?" ejaculated Trott 
again, falling back a step or two, and 
gazing", in unutterable wonder, on the 
countenance of the mayor. 

" Ha-ha ! I see, my lord — practising 
the madman \ — very good indeed — 
very vacant look — capital, my lord, 
capital — good evening, Mr. — Trott — 
ha! ha! "ha!" 

" That mayor 's decidedly drunk," 
soliloquised Mr. Trott, throwing him- 
self back in his chair, in an attitude 
of reflection. 

" He is a much cleverer fellow than 
I thought him, that young nobleman 
— he carries it off uncommonly well," 
thought Overton, as he went his 
way to the bar, there to complete his 
arrangements. This was soon done. 
Every word of the story was implicitly 
believed, and the one-eyed boots was 
immediately instructed to repair to 
number nineteen, to act as custodian of 
the person of the supposed lunatic until 
half-past twelve o'clock. In pursuance 
of this direction, that somewhat ec- 
centric gentleman armed himself with 
a walking-stick of gigantic dimensions, 
and repaired, with his usual equanimity 
of manner, to Mr. Trott's apartment, 
which he entered without any cere- 
mony, and mounted guard in, by 
quietly depositing himself on a chair 
near the door, where he proceeded 
to beguile the time by whistling a po- 
pular air with great apparent satis- 
faction. 

"What do you want here, you 
scoundrel ? " exclaimed Mr. Alexander 
Trott, with a proper appearance of in- 
dignation at his detention. 

The boots beat time with his head, 
as he looked gently round at Mr. Trott 
with a smile of pity, and whistled an 
adagio movement. 

" Do you attend in this room by Mr. 
Overton's desire ? " inquired Trott, 



THE GREAT WINGLEBURY DUEL. 



255 



rather astonished at the man's de- 
meanour. 

"Keep yourself to yourself, young 
feller," calmly responded the boots, 
" and don't say nothin' to nobody." 
And he whistled again. 

"Now, mind !" ejaculated Mr. Trott, 
anxious to keep up the farce of wishing 
with great earnestness to fight a duel 
if they 'd let him. " I protest against 
being kept here. I deny that I have 
any intention of fighting with anybody. 
But, as it 's useless contending with 
superior numbers, I shall sit quietly 
down." 

" You 'd better," observed the placid 
boots, shaking the large stick expres- 
sively. 

" Under protest, however," added 
Alexander Trott, seating himself, with 
indignation in his face, but great con- 
tent in his heart. " Under protest." 

" Oh, certainly ! " responded the 
boots ; " anything you please. If you're 
happy, I 'm transported ; only don't 
talk too much — it '11 make you worse." 

" Make me worse ? " exclaimed 
Trott, in unfeigned astonishment: " the 
man 's drunk ! " 

" You 'd better be quiet, young 
feller," remarked the boots, going 
through a threatening piece of pan- 
tomime with the stick. 

" Or mad ! " said Mr. Trott, rather 
alarmed. " Leave the room, sir, and 
tell them to send somebody else." 

" Won't do ! " replied the boots. 

" Leave the room ! " shouted Trott, 
ringing the bell violently ; for he began 
to be alarmed on a new score. 

"Leave that 'ere bell alone, you 
wretched loo-nattic!" said the bocts, 
suddenly forcing the unfortunate Trott 
back into his chair, and brandishing the 
stick aloft. " Be quiet, you mis'rable 
object, and don't let everybody know 
there 's a madman in the house." 

" He is a madman ! He is a mad- 
man ! " exclaimed the terrified Mr. 
Trott, gazing on the one eye of the 
red-headed boots with a look of abject 
horror. 

" Madman ! " replied the boots, 
" dam'me, I think he is a madman with 



a vengeance ! Listen to me, you un- 
fort'nate. Ah ! would you ?-" [a slight 
tap on the head with the large stick, 
as Mr. Trott made another move to- 
wards the bell-handle] " I caught you 
there ! did 1 1 " 

" Spare my life ! " exclaimed Trott, 
raising his hands imploringly. 

" I don't want your life," replied the 
boots, disdainfully, " though I think it 
'ud be a charity if somebody took it." 

" No, no, it wouldn't," interrupted * 
poor Mr. Trott, hurriedly; "no, no, it 
wouldn't ! I — I — 'd rather keep it!" 

" werry well," said the boots ; 
" that's a mere matter of taste — ev'ry 
one to his liking. Hows'ever, all I 've 
got to say is this here : You sit quietly 
down in that chair, and I '11 sit hopper- 
site you here, and if you keep quiet 
and don't stir, I won't damage you ; 
but, if you move hand or foot till half- 
past twelve o'clock, I shall alter the 
expression of your countenance so 
completely, that the next time you look 
in the glass you '11 ask vether you 're 
gone out of town, and ven you 're likely 
to come back again. So sit down." 

" I will — I will," responded the vic- 
tim of mistakes ; and down sat Mr. 
Trott and down sat the boots too, 
exactly opposite him, with the stick 
ready for immediate action in case of 
emergency. 

Long and dreary were the hours 
that followed. The bell of Great 
Winglebury church had just struck 
ten, and two hours and a half would 
probably elapse before succour arrived. 
For half an hour, the 'noise occasioned 
by shutting up the shops in the street 
beneath, betokened something like life 
in the town, and rendered Mr. Trott's 
situation a little less insupportable ; 
but, when even these ceased, and 
nothing was heard beyond the oc- 
casional rattling of a post-chaise as it 
drove up the yard to change horses, 
and then drove away again, or the 
clattering of horses' hoofs in the stables 
behind, it became almost unbearable. 
The boots occasionally moved an inch 
or two, to knock superfluous bits of 
wax off the candles, which were burn- 



256 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



ing low, but instantaneously resumed 
his former position ; and as he re- 
membered to have heard, somewhere 
or other, that the human eye had an 
unfailing effect in controlling mad 
people, he kept his solitary organ of 
vision constantly fixed on Mr. Alex- 
ander Trott. That unfortunate indi- 
vidual stared at his companion in his 
turn, until his features grew more and 
more indistinct — his hah' gradually 
less red — and the room more misty 
and obscure. Mr. Alexander Trott 
fell into a sound sleep, from which he 
was awakened by a rumbling in the 
street, and a cry of " Chaise-and-four 
for number twenty-five ! " A bustle 
on the stairs succeeded ; the room- 
door was hastily thrown open ; and 
Mr. Joseph Overton entered, followed 
by four stout waiters, and Mrs. 
Williamson, the stout landlady of the 
Winglebury Arms. 

K Mr. Overton ! " exclaimed Mr. 
Alexander Trott, jumping up in a 
frenzy, " Look at this man, sir ; con- 
sider the situation in which I have 
been placed for three hours past — the 
person you sent to guard me, sir, was 
a madman — a madman — a raging, 
ravaging, furious madman." 

" Bravo ! " whispered Overton. 

" Poor dear ! " said the compassion- 
ate Mrs. Williamson, " mad people 
always thinks other people 's mad." 

" Poor dear ! " ejaculated Mr. Alex- 
ander Trott, " What the devil do you 
mean by poor dear ! Are you the land- 
lady of this house 1 " 

" Yes, yes," replied the stout old 
lady, " don't exert yourself, there 's a 
dear ! Consider your health, now ; 
do." 

" Exert myself ! " shouted Mr. 
Alexander Trott, "it's a mercy, 
ma'am, that I have any breath to 
exert myself with ! I might have been 
assassinated three hours ago by that 
one-eyed monster with the oakum 
head. How dare you have a madman, 
ma'am — how dare you have a mad- 
man, to assault and terrify the visitors 
to your house ? " 

a I '11 never have another" said 



Mrs. Williamson, casting a look of 
reproach at the mayor. 

" Capital, capital," whispered Over- 
ton again, as he enveloped Mr. Alex- 
ander Trott in a thick travelling-cloak. 
" Capital, sir ! " exclaimed Trott, 
aloud, " it 's horrible. The very re- 
collection makes me shudder. I 'd 
rather fight four duels in three hours, 
if I survived the first three, than I 'd 
sit for that time face to face with a 
madman." 

" Keep it up, my Lord, as you go down 
stairs," whispered Overton, " your bill 
is paid, and your portmanteau in the 
chaise." And then he added aloud, 
" Now, waiters, the gentleman's ready." 

At this signal, the waiters crowded 
round Mr. Alexander Trott. One, took 
one arm ; another, the other ; a third, 
walked before with a candle; the fourth, 
behind with another candle ; the boots 
and Mrs. Williamson brought up the 
rear ; and down stairs they went : Mr. 
Alexander Trott expressing alternately 
at the very top of his voice either his 
feigned reluctance to go, or his un- 
feigned indignation at being shut up 
with a madman. 

Mr. Overton was waiting at the 
chaise-door, the boys were ready 
mounted, and a few ostlers and stable 
nondescripts were standing round to 
witness the departure of " the mad 
gentleman." Mr. Alexander Trott's 
foot was on the step, when he observed 
(which the dim light had prevented 
his doing before) a figure seated 
in the chaise, closely muffled up in a 
cloak like his own. 

" Who 's that ? " he inquired of 
Overton, in a whisper. 

" Hush, hush," replied the mayor ; 
"the other party of course." 

" The other party ! " exclaimed 
Trott, with an effort to retreat. 

a Yes, yez ; you '11 soon find that 
out, before you go far, I should think 
— but make a noise, you '11 excite sus- 
picion if you whisper to me so much." 

" I won't go in this chaise ! " shouted 
Mr. Alexander Trott, all his original 
fears recurring with tenfold violence. 
"I shall be assassinated — I shall be — '* 



THE GREAT WINGLEBURY DUEL. 



257 



" Bravo, bravo," whispered Overton. 
" I '11 push you in." 

" But I won't go," exclaimed Mr. 
Trott. " Help here, help ! They 're 
carrying me away against my will. 
This is a plot to murder me." 

" Poor dear ! " said Mrs. William- 
son again. 

" Now, boys, put 'em along," cried 
the mayor, pushing Trott in and slam- 
ming the door. " Off with you, as 
quick as you can, and stop for nothing 
till vou come to the next stage — all 
right ! " 

" Horses are paid, Tom," screamed 
Mrs. Williamson ; and away went the 
chaise, at the rate of fourteen miles an 
hour, with Mr. Alexander Trott and 
Miss Julia Manners carefully shut up 
in the inside. 

Mr. Alexander Trott remained 
coiled up in one corner of the chaise, 
and his mysterious companion in the 
other, for the first two or three miles ; 
Mr. Trott edging more and more into 
his corner, as he felt his companion 
gradually edging more and more from 
hers ; and vainly endeavouring in the 
darkness to catch a glimpse of the 
furious face of the supposed Horace 
Hunter. 

" We may speak now," said his fel- 
low traveller, at length; " the post-boys 
can neither see nor hear us." 

" That's not Hunter's voice ! " — 
thought Alexander, astonished. 

" Dear Lord Peter ! " said Miss 
Julia, most winningly : putting her 
arm on Mr. Trott's shoulder. " Dear 
Lord Peter. Not a word ? " 

" Why, it 's a woman I " exclaimed 
Mr. Trott, in a low tone of excessive 
wonder. 

" Ah ! Whose voice is that ?" said 
Julia ; " 'tis not Lord Peter's." 

" No, — it 's mine," replied Mr. 
Trott. 

" Yours ! " ejaculated Miss Julia 
Manners ; " a strange man ! Gi'acious 
heaven ! How came you here % " 

" Whoever you are, you might have 
known that I came against my will, 
ma'am," replied Alexander, "for I 
made noise enough when I got in." 

No. 189. 



" Do you come from Lord Peter ? " 
inquired Miss Manners. 

" Confound Lord Peter," replied 
Trott pettishly. " I don't know any 
Lord Peter. I never heard of him 
before to-night, when I've been Lord 
Peter'd by one and Lord Peter'd by 
another, till I verily believe I'm mad, 
or dreaming — " 

" Whither are we going ? " inquired 
the lady tragically. 

" How should / know, ma'am % " re- 
plied Trott with singular coolness ; for 
the events of the evening had com- 
pletely hardened him. 

" Stop ! stop ! " cried the lady, 
letting down the front glasses of the 
chaise. 

" Stay, my dear ma'am ! " said Mr, 
Trott, pulling the glasses up again 
with one hand, and gently squeezing 
Miss Julia's waist with the other. 
" There is some mistake here ; give 
me till the end of this stage to explain 
my share of it. We must go so far ; 
you cannot be set down here alone, at 
this hour of the night." 

The lady consented; the mistake 
was mutually explained. Mr. Trott 
was a young man, had highly promising 
whiskers, an undeniable tailor, and an 
insinuating addi'ess — he wanted no- 
thing but valour, and who wants that 
with three thousand a-year ? The lady 
had this, and more ; she wanted a 
young husband, and the only course 
open to Mr. Trott to retrieve his dis- 
grace was a rich wife. So, they came 
to the conclusion that it would be a 
pity to have all this trouble and ex- 
pense for nothing ; and that as they 
were so far on the road already, they 
had better go to Gretna Green, and 
marry each other ; and they did so. 
And the very next preceding entry in 
the Blacksmith's book, was an entry of 
the marriage of Emily Brown with 
Horace Hunter. Mr. Hunter took 
his wife home, and begged pardon, and 
was pardoned ; and Mr. Trott took 
his wife home, begged pardon too, 
and was pardoned also. And Lord 
Peter, who had been detained beyond 
his time by drinking champagne and 
17 



258 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



riding a steeple-chase, went back to the 
Honourable Augustus Flair's, and 
drank more champagne, and rode 
another steeple-chase, and was thrown 
and killed. And Horace Hunter took 
great credit to himself for practising 
on the cowardice of Alexander Trott j 



and all these circumstances were dis- 
covered in time, and carefully noted 
down ; and if you ever stop a week at 
the Winglebury Arms, they will give 
you just this account of The Great 
Winglebury Duel. 



MRS. JOSEPH PORTER. 



259 



CHAPTER IX. 



MRS. JOSEPH PORTER. 



Most extensive were the preparations 
at Rose Villa, Clapham Rise, in the 
occupation of Mr. Gattleton (a stock- 
broker in especially comfortable cir- 
cumstances), and great was the anxiety 
of Mr. Gattleton's interesting family, 
as the day fixed for the representation 
of the Private Play which had been 
t( many months in preparation," ap- 
proached. The whole family was in- 
fected with the mania for Private 
Theatricals; the house, usually so 
clean and tidy, was, to use Mr. Gattle- 
ton's expressive description, "regu- 
larly turned out o' windows ; " the 
large dining-room, dismantled of its 
furniture and ornaments, presented a 
strange jumble of flats, flies, wings, 
lamps, bridges, clouds, thunder and 
lightning, festoons and flowers, dag- 
gers and foil, and various other 
messes in theatrical slang included 
under the comprehensive name of 
" properties." The bed-rooms were 
crowded with scenery, the kitchen was 
occupied by carpenters. Rehearsals 
took place every other night in the 
drawing-room, and every sofa in the 
house was more or less damaged by 
the perseverance and spirit with which 
Mr. Sempronius Gattleton, and Miss 
Lucina, rehearsed the smothering 
scene in " Othello " — it having been 
determined that that tragedy should 
form the first portion of the evening's 
entertainments. 

" When we're a leetle more perfect, 
I think it will go admirably," said 
Mr. Sempronius, addressing his corps 
dramatique, at the conclusion of the 
hundred and fiftieth rehearsal. In 
consideration of his sustaining the 
trifling inconvenience of bearing all 
the expenses of the play, Mr. Sem- 
pronius had been, in the most hand- 
some manner, unanimously elected 
stage-manager. " Evans," continued 



Mr. Gattleton, the younger, addressing 
a tall, thin, pale young gentleman, 
with extensive whiskers. " Evans, 
you play Roderigo beautifully." 

" Beautifully ! " echoed the three 
Miss Gattletons ; for Mr. Evans was - 
pronounced by all his lady friends to 
be " quite a dear." He looked so in- 
teresting, and had such lovely whis- 
kers : to say nothing of his talent for 
writing verses in albums and playing 
the flute ! Roderigo simpered and 
bowed. 

" But I think," added the manager, 
" you are hardly perfect in the — fall — 
in the fencing-scene, where you are — 
you understand ? " 

" It 's very difficult," said Mr. 
Evans, thoughtfully ; <c 1 5 ve fallen 
about, a good deal, in our counting- 
house lately for practice, only I find 
it hurts one so. Being obliged to fall 
backwards you see, it bruises one's 
head a good deal." 

" But you must take care you don't 
knock a wing down," said Mr. Gattle- 
ton, the elder, who had been appointed 
prompter, and who took as much in- 
terest in the play as the youngest of 
the company. " The stage is very 
narrow, you know." 

" Oh ! don't be afraid," said Mr. 
Evans, with a very self-satisfied air : 
" I shall fall Avith my head ' off,' and 
then I can't do any harm." 

" But, egad ! " said the manager, 
rubbing his hands, " we shall make a 
decided hit in ' Masaniello.' Harleigh 
sings that music admirably." 

Everybody echoed the sentiment. 
Mr. Harleigh smiled, and looked fool- 
ish — not an unusual thing with him — 
hummed " Behold how brightly breaks 
the morning," and blushed as red as 
the fisherman's nightcap he was trying 
on. 

" Let 's see," resumed the manager 
s2 



260 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



telling tlia number on his fingers, " we 
shall have three dancing female pea- 
sants, besides Fenella, and four fisher- 
men. Then, there's our man Tom; he 
can have a pair of ducks of mine, and 
a check shirt of Bob's, and a red 
nightcap, and he'll do for another — 
that 's five. In the choruses, of course, 
we can sing at the sides ; and in the 
market-scene, we can walk about in 
cloaks and things. When the revolt 
takes place, Tom must keep rushing 
in on one side and out on the other, 
with a pickaxe, as fast as he can. The 
effect will be electrical ; it will look 
exactly as if there were an immense 
number of 'em. And in the eruption 
scene we must burn the red fire, and 
upset the tea-trays, and make all sorts 
of noises — and it 's sure to do." 

" Sure ! sure ! " cried all the per- 
formers una voce — and away hurried 
Mr. Sempronius Gattleton to wash the 
burnt cork off his face, and superin- 
tend the " setting up " of some of the 
amateur-painted,andnever-sufficiently- 
to-be-admired, scenery. 

Mrs. Gattleton was a kind, good- 
tempered, vulgar soul, exceedingly 
fond of her husband and children, and 
entertaining only three dislikes. In 
the first place, she had a natural anti- 
pathy to anybody else's unmarried 
daughters ; in the second, she was 
in bodily fear of anything in the 
shape of ridicule ; lastly — almost a 
necessary consequence of this feeling 
— she regarded, with feelings of the 
utmost horror, one Mrs. Joseph Porter 
over the way. However, the good 
folks of Clapham and its vicinity stood 
very much in awe of scandal and sar- 
casm ; and thus Mrs. Joseph Porter 
was courted, and flattered, and ca- 
ressed, and invited, for much the same 
reason that induces a poor author, 
without a farthing in his pocket, to 
behave with extraordinary civility to 
a two-penny postman. 

" Never mind, ma," said Miss Emma 
Porter, in colloquy with her respected 
relative, and trying to look uncon- 
cerned ; " if they had invited me, you 
know that neither you nor pa would 



have allowed me to take part in such 
an exhibition." 

" Just what I should have thought 
from your high sense of propriety," 
returned the mother. " I am glad to 
see, Emma, you know how to desig- 
nate the proceeding." Miss P., by- 
the-by, had only the week before made 
" an exhibition " of herself for four 
days, behind a counter at a fancy fair, 
to all and every of her Majesty's liege 
subjects who were disposed to pay a 
shilling each for the privilege of seeing 
some four dozen girls flirting with 
strangers, and playing at shop. 

" There ! " said Mrs. Porter, look- 
ing out of window ; " there are two 
rounds of beef and a ham going in — 
clearly for sandwiches ; and Thomas, 
the pastry-cook, says, there have been 
twelve dozen tarts ordered, besides 
blanc-mange and jellies. Upon my 
word ! think of the Miss Gattletons in 
fancy dresses, too ! " 

" Oh, it 's too ridiculous ! " said 
Miss Porter, hysterically. 

"I'll manage to put them a little 
out of conceit with the business, how- 
ever," said Mrs. Porter ; and out she 
went on her charitable errand. 

"Well, my dear Mrs. Gattleton," 
said Mrs. Joseph Porter, after they 
had been closeted for some time, and 
when, by dint of indefatigable pump- 
ing, she had managed to extract all 
the news about the play, " well, my 
dear, people may say what they please ; 
indeed we know they will, for some 
folks are so ill-natured. Ah, my dear 
Miss Lucina, how d'ye do ? I was 
just telling your mamma that I have 
heard it said, that " 

" What ? " 

" Mrs. Porter is alluding to the 
play, my dear," said Mrs. Gattleton ; 
"she was, I am sorry to say, just 
informing me that " 

" Oh, now pray don't mention it," 
interrupted Mrs. Porter ; " it 's most 
absurd — quite as absurd as young 
What's-his-name saying he wondered 
how Miss Caroline with such a foot and 
ankle, could have the vanity to play 
Fenella:' 



MRS. JOSEFH PORTER. 



261 



" Highly impertinent," whoever said 
it," said Mrs. Gattleton, bridling up. 

" Certainly, my dear," chimed in 
the delighted Mrs. Porter ; " most 
undoubtedly ! Because, as I said, if 
Miss Caroline does play Fenella, it 
doesn't follow, as a matter of course, 
that she should think she has a pretty 
foot ; and then — such puppies as these 
young men are — he had the impudence 
to say, that " 

How far the amiable Mrs. Porter 
might have succeeded in her pleasant 
purpose, it is impossible to say, had 
not the entrance of Mr. Thomas Bal- 
derstone, Mrs. Gattleton's brother, 
familiarly called in the family " Uncle 
Tom," changed the course of conver- 
sation, and suggested to her mind an 
excellent plan of operation on the 
evening of the play. 

Uncle Tom was very rich, and ex- 
ceedingly fond of his nephews and 
nieces : as a matter of course, there- 
fore, he was an object of great import- 
ance in his own family. He was one 
of the best-hearted men in existence ; 
always in a good temper, and always 
talking. It was his boast that he wore 
top-boots on all occasions, and had never 
worn a black silk neckkerchief ; and it 
was his pride that he remembered all 
the principal plays of Shakspeare from 
beginning to end — and so he did. The 
result of this parrot-like accomplish- 
ment was, that he was not only per- 
petually quoting himself, but that he 
could never sit by, and hear a misquo- 
tation from the " Swan of Avon" with- 
out setting the unfortunate delinquent 
right. He was also something of a 
wag ; never missed an opportunity of 
saying what he considered a good 
thing, and invariably laughed until he 
cried at anything that appeared to him 
mirth-moving or ridiculous. 

" Well, girls ! " said uncle Tom, 
after the preparatory ceremony of 
kissing and how-d'ye-do-ing had been 
gone through — " how d'ye get on ? 
Know your parts, eh ? — Lucina, my 
dear, act ii., scene 1 — place, left — cue 
— * Unknown fate,' — What 's next, eh ? 
— Go on — ' The heavens — '" 



"Oh, yes," said Miss Lucina, "I 
recollect — 

' The heavens forbid 
But that our loves and comforts should in- 
crease 
Even as our days do grow ! ' " 

" Make a pause here and there," 
said the old gentleman, who was a 
great critic. " ' But that our loves 
and comforts should increase'— em- 
phasis on the last syllable, 'crease,' — • 
loud « even,'— one, two, three, four ; 
then loud again, l as our days do 
grow ; ' emphasis on days. That 's 
the way, my dear ; trust to your uncle 
for emphasis. Ah ! Sem, my boy, 
how are you ? " 

" Very well, thankee uncle," returned 
Mr. Sempronius, who had just ap- 
peared, looking something like a ring- 
dove, with a small circle round each 
eye: the result of his constant corking. 
" Of course we see you on Thursday." 

" Of course, of course, my dear 
boy." 

" What a pity it is, your nephew 
didn't think of making you prompter, 
Mr. Balderstone ! " whispered Mrs. 
Joseph Porter ; " you would have 
been invaluable." 

" Well, I flatter myself, I should 
have been tolerably up to the thing," 
responded Uncle Tom. 

" I must bespeak sitting next you 
on the night," resumed Mrs. Porter ; 
" and then, if our dear young friends 
here, should be at all wrong, you will 
be able to enlighten me. I shall be so 
interested." 

" I am sure I shall be most happy 
to give you any assistance in my 
power." 

" Mind, it 's a bargain." 

" Certainly." 

" I don't know how it is," said Mrs. 
Gattleton to her daughters, as they 
were sitting round the fire in the even- 
ing, looking over their parts, " but I 
really very much wish Mrs. Joseph 
Porter wasn't coming on Thursday. 
I am sure she's scheming something." 

" She can't make us ridiculous, how- 
ever," observed Mr. Sempronius Gat- 
tleton, haughtily. 



262 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



The long-looked-for Thursday ar- 
rived in due course, and brought with 
it, as Mr. Gattleton, senior, philoso- 
phically observed, " no disappoint- 
ments, to speak of." True, it was yet 
a matter of doubt whether Cassio 
would be enabled to get into the dress 
which had been sent for him from the 
masquerade warehouse. It was equally 
uncertain whether the principal female 
singer would be sufficiently recovered 
from the influenza to make her appear- 
ance ; Mr. Harleigh, the Masaniello 
of the night, was hoarse, and rather 
unwell, in consequence of the great 
quantity of lemon and sugar-candy he 
had eaten to improve his voice ; and 
two flutes and a violoncello had pleaded 
severe colds. What of that ? the 
audience were all coming. Every- 
body knew his part ; the dresses were 
covered with tinsel and spangles ; the 
white plumes looked beautiful ; Mr. 
Evans had practised falling until he 
was bruised from head to foot and 
quite perfect ; Iago was sure that, 
in the stabbing-scene, he should make 
" a decided hit." A self-taught deaf 
gentleman, who had kindly offered 
to bring his flute, would be a most 
valuable addition to the orchestra ; 
Miss Jenkins's talent for the piano 
was too well known to be doubted for 
an instant ; Mr. Cape had practised 
the violin accompaniment with her, 
frequently ; and Mr. Brown, who 
had kindly undertaken, at a few 
hours' notice, to bring his violoncello, 
would, no doubt, manage extremely 
well. 

Seven o'clock came, and so did the 
audience ; all the rank and fashion of 
Clapham and its vicinity was fast filling 
the theatre. There were the Smiths, 
the Gubbinses, the Nixons, the Dixons, 
the Hicksons, people with all sorts of 
names, two aldermen, a sheriff in per- 
spective, Sir Thomas Glumper (who 
had been knighted in the last reign for 
carrying up an address on somebody's 
escaping from nothing) ; and last, 
not least, there were Mrs. Joseph 
Porter and Uncle Tom, seated in the 
centre of the third row from the stage; 



Mrs. P. amusing Uncle Tom with all 
sorts of stories, and Uncle Tom amusing 
every one else by laughing most immo- 
derately. 

Ting, ting, ting ! went the promp- 
ter's bell at eight o'clock precisely, and 
dash went the orchestra into the over- 
ture to " The Men of Prometheus." 
The pianoforte player hammered 
away with laudable perseverance ; 
and the violoncello, which struck in at 
intervals, "sounded very well, con- 
sidering." The unfortunate individual, 
however, who had undertaken to play 
the flute accompaniment " at sight," 
found, from fatal experience, the per- 
fect truth of the old adage, " out of 
sight, out of mind ; " for being very 
near-sighted, and being placed at a 
considerable distance from his music- 
book, all he had an opportunity of 
doing was to play a bar now and then 
in the wrong place, and put the other 
performers out. It is, however, but 
justice to Mr. Brown to say that he 
did this to admiration. The overture, 
in fact, was not unlike a race between 
the different instruments ; the piano 
came in first by several bars, and the 
violoncello next, quite distancing the 
poor flute ; for the deaf gentleman 
too-too'd away, quite unconscious that 
he was at all wrong, until apprised, 
by the applause of the audience, that 
the overture was concluded. A con- 
siderable bustle and shuffling of feet 
was then heard upon the stage, ac- 
companied by whispers of " Here 's a 
pretty go ! — what 's to be done ? " &c. 
The audience applauded again, by way 
of raising the spirits of the performers; 
and then Mr. Sempronius desired the 
prompter, in a very audible voice, to 
" clear the stage, and ring up." 

Ting, ting, ting ! went the bell 
again. Everybody sat down ; the 
curtain shook ; rose sufficiently high 
to display several pair of yellow boots 
paddling about ; and there remained. 

Ting, ting, ting ! went the bell 
again. The curtain was violently con- 
vulsed, but rose no higher ; the audi- 
ence tittered ; Mrs. Porter looked at 
Uncle Tom ; Uncle Tom looked at 



MRS. JOSEPH PORTER. 



263 



everybody, rubbing his hands, and 
laughing with perfect rapture. After 
as much ringing with the little bell as 
a muffin-boy would make in going 
down a tolerably long street, and a 
vast deal of whispering, hammering, 
and calling for nails and cord, the cur- 
tain at length rose, and discovered 
Mr. Sempronius Gattleton solus, and 
decked for Othello. After three dis- 
tinct rounds of applause, during which 
Mr. Sempronius applied his right hand 
to his left breast, and bowed, in the 
most approved manner, the manager 
advanced, and said : 

" Ladies and Gentlemen — I assure 
you it is with sincere regret, that I 
regret to be compelled to inform you, 
that Iago who was to have played Mr. 
Wilson — I beg your pardon, Ladies 
and Gentlemen, but I am naturally 
somewhat agitated (applause) — I 
mean, Mr. Wilson, who was to have 
played Iago, is — that is, has been — 
or, in other words, Ladies and Gentle- 
men, the fact is, that I have just re- 
ceived a note, in which I am informed 
that Iago is unavoidably detained at 
the Post-office this evening. Under 
these circumstances, I trust — a — a — 
amateur performance — a — another 
gentleman undertaken to read the 
part — request indulgence for a short 
time — courtesy and kindness of a 
British audience." Overwhelming ap- 
plause. Exit Mr. Sempronius Gattle- 
ton, and curtain falls. 

The audience were, of course, ex- 
ceedingly good-humoured ; the whole 
business was a joke ; and accordingly 
they waited for an hour with the ut- 
most patience, being enlivened by an 
interlude of rout-cakes and lemonade. 
It appeared by Mr. Sempronius's sub- 
sequent explanation, that the delay 
would not have been so great, had it 
not so happened that when the substi- 
tute Iago had finished dressing, and 
just as the play was on the point of 
commencing, the original Iago unex- 
pectedly arrived. The former was 
therefore compelled to undress, and 
the latter to dress for his part ; which 
as he found some difficulty in getting 



into his clothes, occupied no incon- 
siderable time. At last, the tragedy 
began in real earnest. It went off 
well enough, until the third scene of 
the first act, in which Othello addresses 
the Senate : the only remarkable cir- 
cumstance being, that as Iago could 
not get on any of the stage boots, in 
consequence of his feet being violently 
swelled with the heat and excitement, 
he was under the necessity of playing 
the part in a pair of Wellingtons, 
which contrasted rather oddly with 
his richly embroidered pantaloons. 
When Othello started with his address 
to the Senate (whose dignity was re- 
presented by, the Duke, a carpenter, 
two men engaged on the recommen- 
dation of the gardener, and a boy) 
Mrs. Porter found the opportunity she 
so anxiously sought. 

Mr. Sempronius proceeded : 

" ' Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, 
My very noble and approv'd good masters, 
That I have ta'en away this old man's 

daughter, 
It is most true;— rude am I in my 
speech '" 

"Is that right?" whispered Mrs. 
Porter to Uncle Tom. 

« No." 

« Tell him so, then." 

" I will. Sem ! " called out Uncle 
Tom, " that's wrong, my boy." 

" What "s wrong, Uncle ? " demand- 
ed Othello, quite forgetting the dignity 
of his situation. 

" You 've left out something. 
' True I have married ' " 

" Oh, ah ! " said Mr. Sempronius, 
endeavouring to hide his confusion as 
much and as ineffectually as the audi- 
ence attempted to conceal their half- 
suppressed tittering, by coughing with 
extraordinary violence — 

" ' true I have married her;— 

The very head and front of my offending 
■ Hath this extent ; no more .' 

(Aside) Why don't you prompt, 
father ? " 

" Because I 've mislaid my spec- 
tacles," said poor Mr. Gattleton, al- 
most dead with the heat and bustle. 



264 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



" There, now it 's l rude am I,' " 
Scaid Uncle Tom. 

" Yes, I know it is," returned the 
unfortunate manager, proceeding with 
his part. 

It would be useless and tiresome to 
quote the number of instances in which 
Uncle Tom, now completely in his ele- 
ment, and instigated by the mischie- 
vous Mrs. Porter, corrected the mis- 
takes of the performers ; suffice it to 
say, that having mounted his hobby, 
nothing could induce him to dismount ; 
so, during the whole remainder of the 
play, he performed a kind of running 
accompaniment, by muttering every- 
body's part as it was being delivered, 
in an under tone. The audience were 
highly amused, Mrs. Porter delighted, 
the performers embarrassed ; Uncle 
Tom never was better pleased in all 
his life ; and Uncle Tom's nephews 
and nieces had never, although the 
declared heirs to his large property, so 
heartily wished him gathered to his 
fathers as on that memorable occasion. 

Several other minor causes, too, 
united to damp the ardour of the dra- 
matis persona. None of the perform- 
ers could walk in their tights, or move 
their arms in their jackets ; the pan- 
taloons were too small, the boots too 
large, and the swords of all shapes 
and sizes. Mr. Evans, naturally too 
tall for the scenery, wore a black vel- 
vet hat with immense white plumes, 
the glory of which was lost in "the 
flies ;" and the only other inconveni- 
ence of which was, that when it was 
off his head he could not put it on, and 
when it was on he could not take it 
off. Notwithstanding all his prac- 
tice, too, he fell with his head and 
shoulders as neatly through one of the 
side scenes, as a harlequin would jump 
through a panel in a Christmas pan- 
tomime. The pianoforte player, over- 
powered by the extreme heat of the 
room, fainted away at the commence- 



ment of the entertainments, leaving 
the music of " Masaniello " to the 
flute and violoncello. The orchestra 
complained that Mr. Harleigh put 
them out, and Mr. Harleigh declared 
that the orchestra prevented his sing- 
ing a note. The fishermen, who were 
hired for the occasion, revolted to the 
very life, positively refusing to play 
without an increased allowance of 
spirits ; and, their demand being com- 
plied with, getting drunk in the erup- 
tion scene as naturally as possible. 
The red fire, which was burnt at the 
conclusion of the second act, not only 
nearly suffocated the audience, but 
nearly set the house on fire into the 
bargain ; and, as it was, the remainder 
of the piece was acted in a thick fog. 

In short, the whole affair was, as 
Mrs. Joseph Porter triumphantly told 
everybody, " a complete failure." The 
audience went home at four o'clock in 
the morning, exhausted with laughter, 
suffering from severe headaches, and 
smelling terribly of brimstone and gun- 
powder. The Messrs. Gattleton, senior 
and junior, retired to rest, with the 
vague idea of emigrating to Swan River 
early in the ensuing week. 

Rose Villa has once again resumed 
its wonted appearance ; the dining- 
room furniture has been replaced ; the 
tables are as nicely polished as for- 
merly; the horsehair chairs are ranged 
against the wall, as regularly as ever ; 
Venetian blinds have been fitted to 
every window in the house to inter- 
cept the prying gaze of Mrs. Joseph 
Porter. The subject of theatricals 
is never mentioned in the Gattleton 
family, unless, indeed, by Uncle Tom, 
who cannot refrain from sometimes ex- 
pressing his surprise and regret at 
finding that his nephews and nieces 
appear to have lost the relish they 
once possessed for the beauties of 
Shakspeare, and quotations from the 
works of that immortal bard. 






MR. WATKINS TOTTLE. 



265 



CHAPTER X. 



A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. WATKINS TOTTLE. 



CHAPTER THE FIRST. 



Matrimony is proverbially a serious 
undertaking. Like an overweening 
predilection for brandy-and-water, it 
is a misfortune into which a man 
easily falls, and from which he finds 
it remarkably difficult to extricate 
himself. It is of no use telling a man 
who is timorous on these points, that it 
is but one plunge, and all is over. 
They say the same thing at the Old 
Bailey, and the unfortunate victims 
derive as much comfort from the 
assurance in the one case as in the 
other. 

Mr. Watkins Tottle was a rather 
uncommon compound of strong uxo- 
rious inclinations, and an unparalleled 
degree of anti-connubial timidity. He 
was about fifty years of age ; stood 
four feet six inches and thi'ee- quarters 
in his socks — for he never stood in 
stocking at all — plump, clean, and rosy. 
He looked something like a vignette to 
one of Richardson's novels, and had a 
clean- era vatish formality of manner, 
and kitchen-pokerness of carriage, 
which Sir Charles Grandison himself 
might have envied. He lived on an 
annuity, which was well adapted to the 
individual who received it, in one 
respect — it was rather small. He re- 
ceived it in periodical payments on 
every alternate Monday ; but he ran 
himself out, about a day after the 
expiration of the first week, as regu- 
larly as an eight-day clock ; and then, 
to make the comparison complete, his 
landlady wound him up, and he went 
on with a regular tick. 

Mr. Watkins Tottle had long lived 
in a state of single blessedness, as 
bachelors say, or single cursedness, as 
spinsters think ; but the idea of matri- 
mony had never ceased to haunt him. 
Wrapt in profound reveries on this 



never-failing theme, fancy transformed 
his small parlour in Cecil-street, Strand, 
into a neat house in the suburbs ; the 
half-hundredweight of coals under the 
kitchen-stairs suddenly sprang up into 
three tons of the best Walls-end ; his 
small French bedstead was converted 
into a regular matrimonial four-poster; 
and in the empty chair on the oppo- 
site side of the fire-place, imagination 
seated a beautiful young lady, with a 
very little independence or will of her 
own, and a very large independence 
under a will of her father's. 

" Who 's there ? " inquired Mr. 
Watkins Tottle, as a gentle tap at his 
room-door disturbed these meditations 
one evening. 

" Tottle, my dear fellow, how do 
you do % " said a short elderly gentle- 
man with a gruffish voice, bursting 
into the room, and replying to the 
question by asking another. 

" Told you I should drop in some 
evening," said the short gentleman, as 
he delivered his hat into Tottle's hand, 
after a little struggling and dodging. 

" Delighted to see you, I 'm sure," 
said Mr. Watkins Tottle, wishing 
internally that his visitor had " dropped 
in " to the Thames at the bottom of the 
street, instead of dropping into his 
parlour. The fortnight was nearly up, 
and Watkins was hard up. 

" How is Mrs. Gabriel Parsons ? " 
inquired Tottle. 

" Quite well, thank you," replied 
Mr. Gabriel Parsons, for that was the 
name the short gentleman revelled in. 
Here there was a pause ; the short- 
gentleman looked at the left hob of the 
fireplace ; Mr. Watkins Tottle stared 
vacancy out of countenance. 

a Quite well," repeated the short 
gentleman, when five minutes had 



266 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



expired. " I may say remarkably well." 
And he rubbed the palms of his hands 
as hard as if he were going to strike a 
light by friction. 

" What will you take ? " inquired 
Tottle, with the desperate suddenness 
of a man who knew that unless the 
visitor took his leave, he stood very 
little chance of taking anything else. 

" Oh, I don't know. — Have you any 
whiskey ? " 

" Why," replied Tottle, very slowly, 
for all this was gaining time, " I had 
some capital, and remarkably strong- 
whiskey last week ; but it 's all gone — 
and therefore its strength " 

" Is much beyond proof ; or, in 
other words, impossible to be proved," 
said the short gentleman ; and he 
laughed very heartily, and seemed 
quite glad the whiskey had been drunk. 
Mr. Tottle smiled — but it was the smile 
of despair. When Mr. Gabriel Par- 
sons had done laughing, he delicately 
insinuated that, in the absence of 
whiskey, he would not be averse to 
brandy. And Mr. Watkins Tottle, 
lighting a flat candle very ostenta- 
tiously ; and displaying an immense 
key, which belonged to the street- 
door, but which, for the sake of 
appearances, occasionally did duty in 
an imaginary wine-cellar; left the room 
to entreat his landlady to charge their 
glasses, and charge them in the bill. 
The application was successful ; the 
spirits were speedily called — not from 
the vasty deep, but the adjacent wine- 
vaults. The two short gentlemen mixed 
their grog ; and then sat cosily down 
before the fire — a pair of shorts, airing 
themselves. 

" Tottle," said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, 
"you know my way — off-hand, open, 
say what I mean, mean what I say, 
hate reserve, and can't bear affecta- 
tion. One, is a bad domino which only 
hides what good, people have about 
'em, without making the bad look 
better ; and the other is much about 
the same thing as pinking a white cot- 
ton stocking to make it look like a silk 
one. Now listen to what I 'm going 
to say." 



Here, the little gentleman paused, 
and took a long pull at his brandy-and- 
water. Mr. Watkins Tottle took a sip 
of his, stirred the fire, and assumed an 
air of profound attention. 

" It 's of no use humming and ha'ing 
about the matter," resumed the short 
gentleman. — " You want to get mar- 
ried." 

" Why," replied Mr. Watkins Tot- 
tle, evasively ; for he trembled vio- 
lently, and felt a sudden tingling 
throughout his whole frame ; a why — 
I should certainly — at least, I think I 
should like — " 

" Won't do," said the short gentle- 
man. — " Plain and free — or there 's 
an end of the matter. Do you want 
money ? " 

" You know I do." 

" You admire the sex ? " 

« I do." 

" And you 'd like to be married ? " 

" Certainly." 

" Then you shall be. There 's an 
end of that." Thus saying, Mr. Gabriel 
Parsons took a pinch of snuff, and 
mixed another glass. 

" Let me entreat you to be more 
explanatory," said Tottle. " Really, 
as the party principally interested, I 
cannot consent to be disposed of, in 
this way." 

" I '11 tell you," replied Mr. Gabriel 
Parsons, warming with the subject, 
and the brandy-and- water. — " I know 
a lady — she 's stopping with my wife 
now — who is just the thing for you 
Well educated ; talks French ; plays 
the piano ; knows a good deal about 
flowers and shells, and all that sort of 
thing ; and has five hundred a -year, 
with an uncontrolled power of dis- 
posing of it, by her last will and 
testament." 

" I '11 pay my addresses to her," 
said Mr. Watkins Tottle. " She isn't 
very young — is she ? " 

" Not very ; just the thing for you. 
— I 've said that already." 

" What coloured hair has the lady % " 
inquired Mr. Watkins Tottle. 

" Egad, I hardly recollect," replied 
Gabriel, with coolness. " Perhaps I 



MR. WATKINS TOTTLE. 



267 



ought to have observed, at first, she 
wears a front." 

" A what !" ejaculated Tottle. 

a One of those things with curls, 
along here," said Parsons, drawing a 
straight line across his forehead, just 
over his eyes, in illustration of his 
meaning. " I know the front 's black ; 
I can't speak quite positively about her 
own hair ; because, unless one walks 
behind her, and catches a glimpse of it 
under her bonnet, one seldom sees it ; 
but I should say that it was rather 
lighter than the front — a shade of a 
greyish tinge, perhaps." 

Mr. Watkins Tottle looked as if he 
had certain misgivings of mind. Mr. 
Gabriel Parsons perceived it, and 
thought it would be safe to begin the 
next attack without delay. 

" Now, were you ever in love, 
Tottle ? " he inquired. 

Mr. Watkins Tottle blushed up to 
the eyes, and down to the chin, and 
exhibited a most extensive combina- 
tion of colours as he confessed the soft 
impeachment. 

" I suppose you popped the question, 
more than once,when you were a young 
— I beg your pardon — a younger — 
man," said Parsons. 

" Never in my life ! " replied his 
friend, apparently indignant at being 
suspected of such an act. " Never ! 
The fact is, that I entertain, as you 
know, peculiar opinions on these sub- 
jects. I am not afraid of ladies, young 
or old — far from it ; but, I think, that 
in compliance with the custom of the 
present day, they allow too much free- 
dom of speech and maimer to mar- 
riageable men. Now, the fact is, that 
anything like this easy freedom I never 
could acquire ; and as I am always 
afraid of going too far, I am generally, 
I dare say, considered formal and 
cold." 

" I shouldn't wonder if you were," 
replied Parsons, gravely ; " I shouldn't 
wonder. However, you '11 be all right 
in this case ; for the strictness and 
delicacy of this lady's ideas greatly 
exceed your own. Lord bless you, 
why when she came to our house, there 



was an old portrait of some man or 
other, with two large black staring 
eyes, hanging up in her bedroom ; she 
positively refused to go to bed there, 
till it was taken down, considering it 
decidedly wrong." 

" I think so, too," said Mr. Watkins 
Tottle ; " certainly." 

"And then, the other night — I never 
laughed so much in my life" — resumed 
Mr. Gabriel Parsons ; " I had driven 
home in an easterly wind, and caught 
a devil of a face-ache. Well ; as . 
Fanny — that 's Mrs. Parsons, you 
know — and this friend of hers, and I, 
and Frank Ross, were playing a rubber, 
I said, jokingly, that when I went to 
bed I should wrap my head in Fanny's 
flannel petticoat. She instantly threw 
up her cards, and left the room." 

" Quite right ! " said Mr. Watkins 
Tottle, " she could not possibly have 
behaved in a more dignified manner. 
What did you do ? " 

" Do ? — Frank took dummy ; and 
I won sixpence." 

" But, didn't you apologise for 
hurting her feelings ? " 

" Devil a bit. Next morning at 
breakfast, we talked it over. She con- 
tended that any reference to a flannel 
petticoat was improper ; — men ought 
not to be supposed to know that such 
things were. I pleaded my cover- 
ture ; being a married man." 

"And what did the lady say to 
that?" inquired Tottle, deeply inter- 
ested. 

" Changed her ground, and said that 
Frank being a single man, its impro- 
priety was obvious." 

" Noble - minded creature ! " ex- 
claimed the enraptured Tottle. 

" Oh ! both Fanny and I said, at 
once, that she was regularly cut out 
for you." 

A gleam of placid satisfaction shone 
on the circular face of Mr. Watkins 
Tottle, as he heard the prophecy. 

" There 's one thing I can't under- 
stand," said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as 
he rose to depart ; " I cannot, for the 
life and souf of me imagine, how the 
deuce vou '11 ever contrive to come 



268 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



together. The lady would certainly go 
into convulsions if the subject were 
mentioned." Mr. Gabriel Parsons sat 
down again, and laughed until he was 
weak. Tottle owed him money, so he 
had a perfect right to laugh at Tottle's 
expense. 

Mr. Watkins Tottle feared, in his 
own mind, that this was another cha- 
racteristic which he had in common 
with this modern Lucretia. He, how- 
ever, accepted the invitation to dine 
with the Parsonses on the next day 
but one, with great firmness ; and 
looked forward to the introduction, 
when again left alone, with tolerable 
composure. 

The sun that rose on the next day 
but one, had never beheld a sprucer 
personage on the outside of the Nor- 
wood stage, than Mr. Watkins Tottle ; 
and when the coach drew up before a 
card-board looking house with dis- 
guised chimneys, and a lawn like a 
large sheet of green letter-paper, he 
certainly had never lighted to his place 
of destination a gentleman who felt 
more uncomfortable. 

The coach stopped, and Mr. Wat- 
kins Tottle jumped — we beg his par- 
don — alighted, with great dignity. 
" All right ! " said he, and away went 
the coach up the hill with that beauti- 
ful equanimity of pace for which 
" short " stages are generally remark- 
able. 

Mr. Watkins Tottle gave a faltering 
jerk to the handle of the garden-gate 
bell. He essayed a more energetic 
tug, and his previous nervousness was 
not at all diminished by hearing the 
bell ringing like a fire alarum. 

" Is Mr. Parsons at home I " in- 
quired Tottle of the man who opened 
the'gate. He could hardly hear him- 
self speak, for the bell had not yet 
done tolling. 

" Here 1 am," shouted a voice on 
the lawn, — and there was Mr. Gabriel 
Parsons in a flannel jacket, running 
backwards and forwards, from a wicket 
to two hats piled on each other, and 
from the two hats to the wicket, 
in the most violent manner, while 



another gentleman with his coat off 
was getting down the area of the 
house, after a ball. When the gentle- 
man without the coat had found it — 
which he did in less than ten minutes 
— he ran back to the hats, and Gabriel 
Parsons pulled up. Then, the gentle- 
man without the coat called out "play," 
very loudly, and bowled, Then, Mr. 
Gabriel Parsons knocked the ball 
several yards, and took another run. 
Then, the other gentleman aimed at 
the wicket, and didn't hit it ; and Mr. 
Gabriel Parsons, having finished run- 
ning on his own account, laid down the 
bat and ran after the ball, which went 
into a neighbouring field. They called 
this cricket. ' 

" Tottle, will you 'go in ? ' " in- 
quired Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as he ap- 
proached him, wiping the perspiration 
off his face. 

Mr. Watkins Tottle declined the 
offer, the bare idea of accepting which 
made him even warmer than his 
friend. 

" Then we '11 go into the house, as 
it 's past four, and I shall have to 
wash my hands before dinner," said 
Mr. Gabriel Pai'sons. " Here, I hate 
ceremony, you know ! Timson, that '& 
Tottle— Tottle, that 's Timson ; bred 
for the church, which I fear will never 
be bread for him ; " and he chuckled 
at the old joke. Mr. Timson bowed 
carelessly. Mr. Watkins Tottle bowed 
stiffly. Mr. Gabriel Parsons led 
the way to the house. He was a rich 
sugar-baker, who mistook rudeness for 
honesty, and abrupt bluntness for an 
open and candid manner ; many be- 
sides Gabriel mistake bluntness for 
sincerity. 

Mrs. Gabriel Parsons received the 
visitors most graciously on the steps, 
and preceded them to the di*awing- 
room. On the sofa, was seated a 
lady of very prim appearance, and re- 
markably inanimate. She was one of 
those persons at whose age it is im- 
possible to make any reasonable guess; 
her features might have been remark- 
ably pretty when she was younger r 
and they might always have presented 



MR. WATKINS TOTTLE. 



269 



the same appearance. Her complexion 
— with a slight trace of powder here 
and there — was as clear as that of a 
well-made wax doll, and her face as 
expressive. She was handsomely 
dressed, and was winding up a gold 
watch. 

" Miss Lillerton, my dear, this is 
our friend Mr. Watkins Tottle ; a very 
old acquaintance I assure you," said 
Mrs. Parsons, presenting the Strephon 
of Cecil-street, Strand. The lady 
rose, and made a deep courtesy ; Mr. 
Watkins Tottle made a bow. 

"Splendid, majestic creature!" 
thought Tottle. 

Mr. Tim son advanced, and Mr. 
Watkins Tottle began to hate him. 
Men generally discover a rival, instinc- 
tively, and Mr. Watkins Tottle felt 
that his hate was deserved. 

" May I beg," said the reverend 
gentleman, — " May I beg to call upon 
you, Miss Lillerton, for some trifling 
donation to my soup, coals, and 
blanket-distribution society ? " 

" Put my name down, for two sove- 
reigns, if you please," responded Miss 
Lillerton. 

" You are truly charitable, madam," 
said the Reverend Mr. Timson, " and 
we know that charity will cover a 
multitude of sins. Let me beg you 
to understand that I do not say this 
from the supposition that you have 
many sins which require palliation ; 
believe me when I say that I never 
yet met any one who had fewer to 
atone for, than Miss Lillerton." 

Something like a bad imitation of 
animation lighted up the lady's face, 
as she acknowledged the compliment. 
Watkins Tottle incurred the sin of 
wishing that the ashes of the Reve- 
rend Charles Timson were quiet.y de- 
posited in the churchyard of his 
curacy, wherever it might be. 

" I '11 tell you what," interrupted 
Parsons, who had just appeared with 
clean hands, and a black coat, " it 's 
my private opinion, Timson, that your 
* distribution society ' is rather a hum- 
bug." 

"You are so severe," replied 



Timson, with a Christian smile ; he 
disliked Parsons, but liked his 
dinners. 

"So positively unjust !" said Miss 
Lillerton. 

" Certainly," observed Tottle. The 
lady looked up ; her eyes met those 
of Mr. Watkins Tottle. She with- 
drew them in a sweet confusion, and 
Watkins Tottle did the same — the 
confusion was mutual. 

"Why," urged Mr. Parsons, pur- 
suing his objections, " what on earth ■ 
is the use of giving a man coals who 
has nothing to cook, or giving him 
blankets when he hasn't a bed, or 
giving him soup when he requires 
substantial food % — ' like sending them 
ruffles when wanting a shirt.' Why 
not give 'em a trifle of money, as I 
do, when I think they deserve it, and 
let them purchase what they think 
best ? Why ? — because your subscri- 
bers wouldn't see their names flourish- 
ing in print on the church-door — 
that's the reason." 

" Really, Mr. Parsons, I hope you 
don't mean to insinuate that I wish to 
see my name in print, on the church- 
door," interrupted Miss Lillerton. 

"I hope not," said Mr. Watkins 
Tottle, putting in another word, and 
getting another glance. 

" Certainly not," replied Parsons. 
" I dare say you wouldn't mind seeing 
it in writing, though, in the church 
register — eh % " 

" Register ! What register % " in- 
quired the lady, gravely. 

" Why, the register of marriages, to 
be sure," replied Parsons, chuckling 
at the sally, and glancing at Tottle. 
Mr. Watkins Tottle thought he should 
have fainted for shame, and it is quite 
impossible to imagine what effect the 
joke would have had upon the lady, if 
dinner had not been, at that moment, 
announced. Mr. Watkins Tottle, with 
an unprecedented effort of gallantry, 
offered the tip of his little finger ; Miss 
Lillerton accepted it gracefully, with 
maiden modesty ; and they proceeded 
in due state to the dinner-table, where 
they were soon deposited side by side. 



270 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



The room was very snug, the dinner 
very good, and the little party in 
spirits. The conversation became 
pretty general, and when Mr. Watkins 
Tottle had extracted one or two cold 
observations from his neighbour, and 
had taken wine with her, he began to 
acquire confidence rapidly. The cloth 
was removed ; Mrs. Gabriel Parsons 
drank four glasses of port ou the plea 
of being a nurse just then ; and Miss 
Lillerton took about the same number 
of sips, on the plea of not wanting 
any at all. At length, the ladies re- 
tired, to the great gratification of Mr. 
Gabriel Parsons, who had been cough- 
ing and frowning at his wife, for half 
an hour previously— signals which 
Mrs. Parsons never happened to 
observe, until she had been pressed 
to take her ordinary quantum, which, 
to avoid giving trouble, she generally 
did at once. 

" Y/hat do you think of her % " in- 
quired Mr. Gabriel Parsons of Mr. 
Watkins Tottle, in an under tone. 

" I dote on her with enthusiasm al- 
ready ! " replied Mr. Watkins Tottle. 

" Gentlemen, pray let us drink ' the 
ladies,' " said the Reverend Mr. Tim- 
son. 

" The ladies ! " said Mr. Watkins 
Tottle, emptying his glass. In the 
fulness of his confidence, he felt as if 
he could make love to a dozen ladies, 
off hand. 

" Ah ! " said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, 
tt I remember when I was a young 
man — fill your glass, Timson." 

" I have this moment emptied it." 

"Then fill again." 

" I will,*' said Timson, suiting the 
action to the word. 

u I remember," resumed Mr. Gabriel 
Parsons, " when I was a younger man, 
with what a strange compound of feel- 
ings I used to drink that toast, and 
how I used to think every woman was 
an angel." 

a Was that before you were mar- 
ried ? " mildly inquired Mr. Watkins 
Tottle. 

" Oh! certainly," replied Mr. Gabriel 
Parsons, "I have never thought so 



since ; and a precious milksop I must 
have been, ever to have thought so at 
all. But, you know, I married Fanny 
under the oddest, and most ridiculous 
circumstances possible." 

" What were they, if one may in- 
quire % " asked Timson, who had heard 
the story, on an average, twice a week 
for the last six months. Mr. Watkins 
Tottle listened attentively, in the hope 
of picking up some suggestion that 
might be useful to him in his new 
undertaking. 

" I spent my wedding-night in a 
back-kitchen chimney," said Parsons, 
by way of a beginning. 

" In a back-kitchen chimney ! " 
ejaculated Watkins Tottle. " How 
dreadful ! " 

" Yes, it wasn't very pleasant," re- 
plied the small host. " The fact is, 
Fanny's father and mother liked me 
well enough as an individual, but 
had a decided objection to my becom- 
ing a husband. You see, I hadn't any 
money in those days, and they had ; 
and so they wanted Fanny to pick up 
somebody else. However, we managed 
to discover the state of each other's 
affections somehow. I used to meet 
her, at some mutual friends' parties ; 
at first we danced together, and talked, 
and flirted, and all that sort of thing ; 
then, I used to like nothing so well as 
sitting by her side — we didn't talk so 
much then, but I remember I used to 
have a great notion of looking at her 
out of the extreme corner of my left 
eye — and then I got very miserable and 
sentimental, and began to write verses, 
and use Macassar oil. At last I couldn't 
bear it any longer, and after I had 
walked up and down the sunny side of 
Oxford-street in tight boots for a week 
— and a devilish hot summer it was 
too — in the hope of meeting her, I sat 
down and wrote a letter, and begged 
her to manage to see me clandestinely, 
for I wanted to hear her decision from 
her own mouth. I said I had dis- 
covered, to my perfect satisfaction, 
that I couldn't live without her, and 
that if she didn't have me, I had made 
up my mind to take prussic acid, or 



MR. WATKINS TOTTLE. 



271 



take to drinking, or emigrate, so as to 
take myself off in some way or other. 
Well, I borrowed a pound, and bribed 
the housemaid to give her the note, 
which she did." 

" And what was the reply % " in- 
quired Timson, who had found, be- 
fore, that to encourage the repetition 
of old stories is to get a general invi- 
tation. 

" Oh, the usual one ! Fanny 
expressed herself very miserable ; 
hinted at the possibility of an early 
grave ; said that nothing should in- 
duce her to swerve from the duty she 
owed her parents ; implored me to 
forget her, and find out somebody 
more deserving, and all that sort of 
thing. She said she could, on no 
account, think of meeting me unknown 
to her pa and ma ; and entreated me, 
as she should be in a particular part 
of Kensington Gardens at eleven 
o'clock next morning, not to attempt 
to meet her there." 

" You didn't go, of course \ " said 
Watkins Tottle. 

" Didn't I ?— Of course I did. There 
she was, with the identical housemaid 
in perspective, in order that there 
might be no interruption. We walked 
about, for a couple of hours ; made 
ourselves delightfully miserable ; and 
were regularly engaged. Then, we 
began to * correspond ' — that is to say, 
we used to exchange about four letters 
a day ; what Ave used to say in 'em I 
can't imagine. And I used to have an 
interview, in the kitchen, or the cel- 
lar, or some such place, every even- 
ing. Well, things went on in this way 
for some time ; and we got fonder of 
each other every day. At last, as our 
love was raised to such a pitch, and as 
my salary had been raised too, shortly 
before, we determined on a secret 
marriage. Fanny arranged to sleep at 
a friend's, on the previous night ; we 
were to be married early in the morn- 
ing ; and then we were to return to her 
home and be pathetic. She was to 
fall at the old gentleman's feet, and 
bathe his boots with her tears ; and I 
was to hug the old lady and call her 



e mother/ and use my pocket handker- 
chief as much as possible. Married 
we were, the next morning ; two girls 
— friends of Fanny's — acting as bride- 
maids ; and a man, who was hired for 
five shillings and a pint of porter, 
officiating as father. Now, the old 
lady unfortunately put off her return 
from Ramsgate,\vhere she had been pay- 
ing a visit, until the next morning ; and 
as we placed great reliance on her, 
we agreed to postpone our confession 
for four-and-twenty hours. My newly * 
made wife returned home, and I spent 
my wedding-day in strolling about 
Hampstead-heath, and execrating my 
father-in-law. Of course, I went to 
comfort my dear little wife at night, 
as much as I could, with the assurance 
that our troubles would soon be over. 
I opened the garden-gate, of which I 
had a key, and was shown by the 
servant to our old place of meeting — 
a back kitchen, with a stone-floor and 
a dresser : upon which, in the absence 
of chairs^ we used to sit and make 
love." 

" Make love upon a kitchen-dresser !" 
interrupted Mr. Watkins Tottle, whose 
ideas of decorum were greatly out- 
raged. 

" Ah ! On a kitchen-dresser ! " re- 
plied Parsons. " And let me tell you, 
old fellow, that, if you were really over 
head-and-ears in love, and had no other 
place to make love in, you 'd be devil- 
ish glad to avail yourself of such an 
opportunity. However, let me see ; — 
where was I % " 

" On the dresser," suggested Timson. 

" Oh — ah ? Well, here I found poor 
Fanny, quite disconsolate and un- 
comfortable. The old boy had been 
very cross all day, which made her 
feel still more lonely ; and she was 
quite out of spirits. So, I put a good 
face on the matter, and laughed it off, 
and said we should enjoy the pleasures 
of a matrimonial life more, by contrast ; 
and, at length, poor Fanny brightened 
up a little. I stopped there, till about 
eleven o'clock, and, just as I was tak- 
ing my leave for the fourteenth time, 
the girl came running down the stairs, 



27: 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



without her shoes, in a great fright, to 
tell us that the old villain — Heaven 
give me for calling him so, for he is 
dead and gone now ! — prompted I sup- 
pose by the prince of darkness, was 
coming down, to draw his own beer for 
supper — a thing he had not done be- 
fore, for six months, to my certain 
knowledge ; for the cask stood in that 
very back kitchen. If he discovered 
me there, explanation would have been 
out of the question ; for he was so out- 
rageously violent, when at all excited, 
that he never would have listened to 
me. There was only one thing to be 
done. The chimney was a very wide 
one ; it had been originally built for 
an oven ; went up perpendicularly for 
a few feet, and then shot backward and 
formed a sort of small cavern. My 
hopes and fortune — the means of our 
joint existence almost — were at stake. 
1 scrambled in, like a squirrel ; coiled 
myself up in this recess ; and, as Fanny 
and the girl replaced the deal chimney- 
board, I could see the light of the 
candle which my unconscious father- 
in-law carried in his hand. I heard 
him draw the beer ; and I never heard 
beer run so slowly. He was just leav- 
ing the kitchen, and I was preparing 
to descend, when down came the in- 
fernal chimney-board with a tremen- 
dous crash. He stopped, and put 
down the candle and the jug of beer 
on the dresser ; he was a nervous old 
fellow, and any unexpected noise an- 
noyed him. He coolly observed that 
the fireplace was never used, and send- 
ing the frightened servant into the 
next kitchen for a hammer and nails, 
actually nailed up the board, and locked 
the door on the outside. So, there was 
I, on my wedding-night, in the light 
kerseymere trousers, fancy waistcoat, 
and blue coat, that I had been married 
in in the morning, in a back-kitchen 
chimney, the bottom of which was 
nailed up, and the top of which had 
been formerly raised some fifteen feet, 
to prevent the smoke from annoying 
the neighbours. And there," added 
Mr. Gabriel Parsons, as he passed the 
bottle, " there I remained till half- 



past seven the next morning, when 
the housemaid's sweetheart, who was 
a carpenter, unshelled me. The old 
dog had nailed me up so securely, that, 
to this very hour, I firmly believe that 
no one but a carpenter could ever have 
got me out." 

t( And what did Mrs. Parsons's 
father say, when he found you were 
married ? " inquired Watkins Tottle, 
who, although he never saw a joke, 
was not satisfied until he heard a story 
to the very end. 

" Why, the affair of the chimney so 
tickled his fancy, that he pardoned us 
off-hand, and allowed us something to 
live on till he went the way of all 
flesh. I spent the next night in his 
second-floor front, much more com- 
fortably than I had spent the pre- 
ceding one ; for, as you will probably 
guess " 

" Please sir, missis has made tea," 
said a middle-aged female servant, 
bobbing into the room. 

" That 's the very housemaid that 
figures in my story," said Mr. Gabriel 
Parsons. " She went into Fanny's 
service when we were first married, 
and has been with us ever since ; but 
I don't think she has felt one atom of 
respect for me since the morning she 
saw me released, when she went into 
violent hysterics, to which she has been 
subject ever since. Now, shall we join 
the ladies ? " 

" If you please," said Mr. Watkins 
Tottle. 

" By all means," added the ob- 
sequious Mr. Timson ; and the trio 
made for the drawing-room accord- 
ingly. 

Tea being concluded, and the toast 
and cups having been duly handed, 
and occasionally upset, by Mr. Wat- 
kins Tottle, a rubber was proposed. 
They cut for partners — Mr. and 
Mrs. Parsons ; and Mr. Watkins 
Tottle and Miss Lillerton. Mr. 
Timson having conscientious scruples 
on the subject of card-playing, drank 
brandy - and - water, and kept up 
a running spar with Mr. Watkins 
Tottle. The evening went off well; 



MR. W ATKINS TOTTLE. 



273 



Mr. Watkins Tottle was in high spirits, 
having some reason to be gratified 
with his reception by Miss Lilierton ; 
and before he left, a small party was 
made up to visit the Beulah Spa on 
the following Saturday. 

" It 's all right, I think," said Mr. 
Gabriel Parsons to Mr. Watkins 
Tottle as he opened the garden gate 
for him. 

" I hope so," he replied, squeezing 
his friend's hand. 



" You '11 be down by the first coach 
on Saturday/' said Mr. Gabriel Par- 
sons. 

"Certainly," replied Mr. Watkins 
Tottle. " Undoubtedly." 

But fortune had decreed that Mr. 
Watkins Tottle should not be down by 
the first coach on Saturday. His ad- 
ventures on that day however, and the 
success of his wooing, are subjects for 
another chapter. 



CHAPTER THE SECOND. 



"The first coach has not come in 
yet, has it, Tom ? " inquired Mr. Ga- 
briel Parsons, as he very complacently 
paced up and down the fourteen feet 
of gravel which bordered the " lawn," 
on the Saturday morning which had 
been fixed upon for the Beulah Spa 
jaunt. 

" No, sir ; I haven't seen it," re- 
plied a gardener in a blue apron, who 
let himself out to do the ornamental 
for half-a-crown a day and his " keep." 

" Time Tottle was down," said Mr. 
Gabriel Parsons, ruminating — " Oh, 
here he is, no doubt," added Gabriel, 
as a cab drove rapidly up the hill; and 
he buttoned his dressing-gown, and 
opened the gate to receive the ex- 
pected visitor. The cab stopped, and 
out jumped a man in a coarse Peter- 
sham great-coat, whity-brown necker- 
chief, faded black suit, gamboge- 
coloured top-boots, and one of those 
large-crowned hats, formerly seldom 
met with, but now very generally 
patronised by gentlemen and coster- 
mongers. 

" Mr. Parsons ? " said the man, 
looking at the superscription of a note 
he held in his hand, and addressing 
Gabriel with an inquiring air. 

" My name is Parsons," responded 
the sugar baker. 

" I 've brought this here note," re- 
plied the individual in the painted 
tops, in a hoarse whisper ; " I Ve 

No. 190. 



brought this here note from a gen'lm'n 
as come to our house this mornin'." 

"I expected the gentleman at my 
house," said Parsons, as he broke the 
seal, which bore the impression of her 
majesty's profile as it is seen on a six- 
pence. 

" I 've no doubt the gen'lm'n would 
ha' been here," replied the stranger, 
" if he hadn't happened to call at our 
house first ; but we never trusts no 
gen'lm'n furder nor we can see him — 
no mistake about that there" — added 
the unknown, with a facetious grin ; 
" beg yer pardon, sir, no offence meant, 
only — once in, and I wish you may — . 
catch the idea, sir ? " 

Mr. Gabriel Parsons was not re- 
markable for catching anything sud- 
denly, but a cold. He therefore only 
bestowed a glance of profound as- 
tonishment on his mysterious compa- 
nion, and proceeded to unfold the note 
of which he had been the bearer. 
Once opened and the idea was caught 
with very little difficulty. Mr. Watkins 
Tottle had been suddenly arrested for 
33£. 10s. Ad., and dated his communi- 
cation from a lock-up house in the 
vicinity of Chancery-lane. 

" Unfortunate affair, this ! " said 
Parsons refolding the note. 

" Oh ! nothin' ven you 're used to 
it," coolly observed the man in the 
Petersham. , 

" Tom ! " exclaimed Parsons, after 

13 



274 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



a few minutes' consideration, ■ just put 
the horse in, will you ? — Tell the gen- 
tleman that I shall he there almost as 
soon as you are," he continued, ad- 
dressing the sheriff-officer's Mercury. 

K Werry well," replied that im- 
portant functionary ; adding, in a 
confidential manner, " I 'd adwise the 
gen'lm'n's friends to settle. You see 
it 's a mere trifle ; and, unless the 
gen'lm'n means to go up afore the 
court, it 's hardly worth while waiting 
for detainers you know. Our go- 
vernor 's wide awake, he is. I '11 never 
say nothin' agin him, nor no man ; 
but he knows what 's o'clock, he does, 
uncommon." Having delivered this 
eloquent, and, to Parsons, particularly 
intelligible harangue, the meaning of i 
which was eked out by divers nods I 
and winks, the gentleman in the boots 
reseated himself in the cab which i 
went rapidly off, and was soon out of] 
sight. Mr. Gabriel Parsons continued 
to pace up and down the pathway for 
some minutes, apparently absorbed in j 
deep meditation. The result of his 
cogitations seemed to be perfectly . 
satisfactory to himself, for he ran 
briskly into the house ; said that busi- 
ness had suddenly summoned him to 
town ; that he had desired the mes- 
senger to inform Mr. Watkins Tottle 
of the fact ; and that they would 
return together to dinner. He then 
hastily equipped himself for a drive, 
and mounting his gig was soon on his 
way to the establishment of Mr. 
Solomon Jacobs, situate (as Mr. 
Watkins Tottle had informed him) in 
Cursitor-street, Chancery-lane. 

When a man is in a violent hurry 
to get on, and has a specific object in 
view the attainment of which depends 
on tne completion of his journey, the 
difficulties which interpose themselves 
in his way appear not only to be innu- 
merable, but to have been called into 
existence especially for the occasion. 
The remark is by no means a new 
one, and Mr. Gabriel Parsons had 
practical and painful experience of its 
justice in the course of his drive. 
There are three classes of animated 



objects which prevent your driving 
with any degree of comfort or cele- 
rity through streets which are but 
little frequented — they are pigs, chil- 
dren, and old women. On the occa- 
sion we are describing, the pigs were 
luxuriating on cabbage-stalks, and the 
shuttlecocks fluttered from the little 
deal battledores, and the children 
played in the road ; and women, with 
a basket in one hand and the street- 
door key in the other, would cross just 
before the horse's head, until Mr. 
Gabriel Parsons was perfectly savage 
with vexation, and quite hoarse with 
hoi-ing and imprecating. Then, when 
he got into Fleet-street, there was " a 
stoppage," in which people in vehicles 
have the satisfaction of remaining sta- 
tionary for half an hour, and envying 
the slowest pedestrians ; and where 
policemen rush about, and seize hold 
of horses' bridles, and back them into 
shop-windows, by way of clearing the 
road and preventing confusion. At 
length Mr. Gabriel Parsons turned 
into Chancery-lane, and having in- 
quired for, and been directed to Cur- 
sitor-street (for it was a locality of 
which he was quite ignorant), he soon 
found himself opposite the house of 
Mr. Solomon Jacobs. Confiding his 
horse and gig to the care of one of the 
fourteen boys who had followed him 
from the other side of Blackfriars- 
bridge on the chance of his requiring 
their services, Mr. Gabriel Parsons 
crossed the road and knocked at an 
inner door, the upper part of which 
was of glass, grated like the windows 
of this inviting mansion with iron bars 
— painted white to look comfortable. 

The knock was answered by a 
sallow-faced red-haired sulky boy, 
who, after surveying Mr. Gabriel 
Parsons through the glass, applied a 
large key to an immense wooden ex- 
crescence, which was in reality a lock, 
but which, taken in conjunction with 
the iron nails with which the panels 
were studded, gave the door the ap- 
pearance of being subject to warts. 

" I want to see Mr. Watkins Tottle," 
said Parsons. 



MR. TV ATKINS TOTTLE. 



" It 's the gentleman that come in 
this morning, Jem," screamed a voice 
from the top of the kitchen stairs, 
which belonged to a dirty woman who 
had just brought her chin to a level 
with the passage-floor. " The gentle- 
man's in the coffee-room." 

" Up stairs, sir," said the boy, just 
opening the door wide enough to let 
Parsons in without squeezing him, 
and double-locking it the moment he 
had made his way through the aper- 
ture — " First floor — door on the left." 

Mr. Gabriel Parsons thus instructed, 
ascended the uncarpeted and ill- 
lighted staircase, and after giving 
several subdued taps at the before- 
mentioned " door on the left," which 
were rendered inaudible by the hum 
of voices within the room, and the 
hissing noise attendant on some frying 
operations which were carrying on 
below stairs, turned the handle, and 
entered the apartment. Being in- 
formed that the unfortunate object of 
his visit had just gone up stairs to 
write a letter, he had leisure to sit 
down and observe the scene before 
him. 

The room — which was a small, con- 
fined den — was partitioned off into 
boxes, like the common room of some 
inferior eating-house. The dirty floor 
had evidently been as long a stranger 
to the scrubbing-brush as to carpet or 
floor-cloth ; and the ceiling was com- 
pletely blackened by the flare of the 
oil-lamp by which the room was 
lighted at night. The gray ashes on 
the edges of the tables, and the cigar 
ends which were plentifully scattered 
about the dusty grate, fully accounted 
for the intolerable smell of tobacco 
which pervaded the place ; and the 
empty glasses and half-saturated slices 
of lemon on the tables, together with 
the porter pots beneath them, bore 
testimony to the frequent libations in 
which the individuals who honoured 
Mr. Solomon Jacobs by a temporary 
residence in his house indulged. Over 
the mantel-shelf was a paltry looking- 
glass, extending about half the width of 
the chimney-piece ; but by way of coun- 



terpoise, the ashes were confined by a 
rusty fender about twice as long as 
the hearth. 

From this cheerful room itself, the 
attention of Mr. Gabriel Parsons was 
naturally directed to its inmates. In 
one of the boxes two men were play- 
ing at cribbage with a very dirty pack 
of cards, some with blue, some with 
green, and some with red backs — 
selections from decayed packs. The 
cribbage board had been long ago 
formed on the table by some ingenious 
visitor with the assistance of a pocket- 
knife and a two-pronged fork, with 
which the necessary number of holes 
had been made in the table at proper 
distances for the reception of the 
wooden pegs. In another box a stout, 
hearty-looking man, of about forty, 
was eating some dinner which his 
wife — an equally comfortable-looking 
personage — had brought him in a 
basket ; and in a third, a genteel- 
looking young man was talking 
earnestly, and in a low tone to a young 
female, whose face was concealed by a 
thick veil, but whom Mr. Gabriel 
Parsons immediately set down in his 
own mind as the debtor's wife. A 
young fellow of vulgar manners, 
dressed in the very extreme of the 
prevailing fashion, was pacing up and 
down the room, with a lighted cigar in 
his mouth and his hands in his pockets, 
ever and anon puffing forth volumes of 
smoke, and occasionally applying, with 
much apparent relish, to a pint pot, 
the contents of which were " chilling" 
on the hob. 

" Fourpence more, by gum ! " ex- 
claimed one of the cribbage-players, 
lighting a pipe, and addressing his 
adversary at the close of the game ; 
"one 'ud think you'd got luck in a 
pepper-cruet, and shook it out when 
you wanted it." 

" Well, that a'n't a bad un," re- 
plied the other, who was a horse- 
dealer from Islington. 

" No ; I 'm blessed if it is," inter- 
posed the jolly-looking fellow, who, 
having finished his dinner, was drink- 
ing out of the same glass as his wife, 

x2 



276 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



in truly conjugal harmony, some hot 
gin-and-water. The faithful partner 
of his cares had brought a plentiful 
supply of the anti-temperance fluid in 
a large fiat stone bottle, which looked 
like a hajf-gallon jar that had been 
successfully tapped for the dropsy. 
" You 're a rum chap, you are, Mr. 
Walker — will you dip your beak into 
this, sir ? " 

" Thank'ee, sir," replied Mr. Walker, 
leaving his box, and advancing to the 
other to accept the proffered glass. 
" Here 's your health, sir, and your 
good 'ooman's here. Gentlemen all — 
yours, and better luck still. Well, 
Mr. Willis," continued the facetious 
prisoner, addressing the young man | 
with the cigar, "you seem rather 
down to-day — floored, as one may say. 
What 's the matter, sir I Never say 
die, you know." 

" Oh ! I 'm all right,'" replied the 
smoker. " I shall be bailed out to- j 
morrow." 

" Shall you, though *" inquired the j 
other. " Damme, I wish I could say j 
the same. I am as regularly over 
head and ears as the Royal George, 
and stand about as much chance of 
being bailed out. Ha ! ha ! ha ! " 

a Why," said the young man, stop- 
ping short, and speaking in a very loud 
key, " look at me. What d 'ye think 
I 've stopped here two days for ? " 

" 'Cause you couldn't get out, I sup- 
pose," interrupted Mr. Walker, wink- 
ing to the company. u Not that you 're 
exactly obliged to stop here, only you 
can't help it. No compulsion, you 
know, only you must — eh ? " 

" A'n't he a rum un I " inquired the 
delighted individual, who had offered 
the gin-and-water, of his wife. 

" Oh, he just is ! " replied the lady, 
who was quite overcome by these 
flashes of imagination. 

" Why, my case," frowned the vic- 
tim, throwing the end of his cigar into 
the fire, and illustrating his argument 
by knocking the bottom of the pot on 
the table, at intervals, — " my case is a 
very singular one. My father 's a man 
of large property, and I am his son." 



" That 's a very strange circum- 
stance ! " interrupted the jocose Mr. 
Walker, en passant. 

" — I am his son, and have received 
a liberal education. I don't owe no 
man nothing — not the value of a 
farthing, but I was induced, you see, to 
put my name to some bills for a friend 
— bills to a large amount, I may say a 
very large amount, for which I didn't 
receive no consideration. What 's the 
consequence I " 

" Why, I suppose the bills went out, 
and you came in. The acceptances 
weren't taken up, and you were, eh ? " 
inquired Walker. 

" To be sure," replied the liberally 
educated young gentleman. "To be 
sure ; and so here I am, locked up for 
a matter of twelve hundred pound." 

" Why don't you ask your old 
governor to stump up ? " inquired 
Walker, with a somewhat sceptical air. 

" Oh ! bless you, he 'd never do it," 
replied the other, in a tone of expostu- 
lation — " Never ! " 

" Well, it is very odd to — be — 
sure," interposed the owner of the fiat 
bottle, mixing another glass, " but I 've 
been in difficulties, as one may say, 
now for thirty year. I went to pieces 
when I was in a milk-walk, thirty 
year ago ; arterwards, when I was a 
fruiterer, and kept a spring wan ; and 
arter that again in the coal and 'tatur 
line — but ah that time I never see a 
youngish chap come into a place of this 
kind, who wasn't going out again 
directly, and who hadn't been arrested 
on bills which he 'd given a friend and 
for which he 'd received nothing what- 
somever — not a fraction." 

" Oh ! it 's always the cry," said 
Walker. " I can't see the use on it ; 
that 's what makes me so wild. Why, 
I should have a much better opinion of 
an individual, if he 'd say at once in an 
honourable and gentlemanly manner 
as he 'd done everybody he possible 
could. 

a Ay, to be sure," interposed the 
horse-dealer, with whose notions of 
bargain and sale the axiom perfectly 
coincided, "so should I." 







MR. W ATKINS TOTTLE. 



277 



The young gentleman, who had 
given rise to these observations, was 
on the point of offering a rather angry 
reply to these sneers, but the rising of 
the young man before noticed, and of 
the female who had been sitting by 
him, to leave the room, interrupted the 
conversation. She had been weeping 
bitterly, and the noxious atmosphere of 
the room acting upon her excited feel- 
ings and delicate frame, rendered the 
support of her companion necessary 
as they quitted it together. 

There was an air of superiority about 
them both, and something in their ap- 
pearance so unusual in such a place, 
that a respectful silence was observed 
until the whirr — r — bang of the spring 
door announced that they were out of 
hearing. It was broken by the wife of 
the ex-fruiterer. 

K Poor creetur ! " said she, quench- 
ing a sigh in a rivulet of gin-and- 
water. " She 's very young." 

" She 's a nice-looking 'ooman too," 
added the horse-dealer. 

" What 's he in for, Ikey \ " inquired 
Walker, of an individual who was 
spreading a cloth with numerous 
blotches of mustard upon it, on one of 
the tables, and whom Mr. Gabriel 
Parsons had no difficulty in recognising 
as the man who had called upon, him 
in the morning. 

" Vy," responded the factotum, " it 's 
one of the rummiest rigs you ever 
heard on. He come in here last Vens- 
day, which by the by he 's a going over 
the water to-night — hows'ever that's 
neither here nor there. You see I 've 
been a going back'ards and for'ards 
about his business, and ha' managed to 
pick up some of his story from the ser- 
vants and them ; and so far as I can 
make it out, it seems to be summat to 
this here effect " 

"Cut it short, old fellow," inter- 
rupted Walker, who knew from former 
experience that he of the top-boots was 
neither very concise nor intelligible in 
his narratives. 

« Let me alone," replied Ikey, " and 
I '11 ha' vound up, and made my lucky 
in five seconds. This here young 



gen'lm'n's father so I 'm told, mind ye 
— and the father o' the young voman, 
have always been on very bad, out-and- 
out, rig'lar knock-me-down sort o' 
terms ; but somehow or another, when 
he was a wisitin' at some gentlefolk's 
house, as he knowed at college, he 
come into contract with the young lady. 
He seed her several times, find then he 
up and said he 'd keep company with 
her, if so be as she vos agreeable. 
Veil, she vos as sweet upon him as he 
vos upon her, and so I s'pose they 
made it all right ; for they got mar- 
ried 'bout six months arterwards, un- 
beknown, mind ye, to the two fathers — 
leastways so I 'm told. When they 
heard on it — my eyes, there was such 
a combustion ! Starvation vos the very 
least that vos to be done to 'em. The 
young gen'lm'n's father cut him off 
vith a bob, 'cos he'd cut himself off 
vith a wife ; and the young lady's 
father he behaved even worser and 
more unnat'ral, for he not only blow'd 
her up dreadful, and swore he 'd never 
see her again, but he employed a chap 
as I knows — and as you knows, Mr. 
Valker, a precious sight too well — to go 
about and buy up the bills and them 
things on which the young husband, 
thinking his governor 'ud come round 
agin, had raised the vind just to blow 
himself on vith for a time ; besides 
vich, he made all the interest he could 
to set other people agin him. Conse- 
quence vos, that he paid as long as he 
could ; but things he never expected 
to have to meet till he 'd had time to 
turn himself round, come fast upon 
him, and he vos nabbed. He vos 
brought here, as I said afore, last 
Vensday, and I think there 's about — 
ah, half-a-dozen detainers agin him 
down stairs now. I have been," added 
Ikey, " in the purfession these fifteen 
year, and I never met vith such win- 
dictiveness afore ! " 

" Poor creeturs ! " exclaimed the 
coal-dealer's wife once more : again 
resorting to the same excellent pre- 
scription for nipping a sigh in the bud : 
" Ah ! when they 've seen as much 
trouble as I and my old man here 



278 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



have, they '11 be as comfortable under 
it as we are." 

" The young lady 's a pretty crea- 
ture," said Walker, " only she 's a little 
too delicate for my taste — there ain't 
enough of her. As to the young cove, 
he may be very respectable and what 
not, but he : s too down in the mouth 
for me — he ain't game." 

" Game ! " exclaimed Ikey, who had 
been altering the position of a green- 
handled knife and fork at least a dozen 
times, in order that he might remain 
in the room under the pretext of 
having something to do. <•' He 's game 
enough ven there 's anything to be 
fierce about ; but who could be game 
as you call it, Mr. Walker, with a pale 
young creetur like that, hanging about 
him ?— It 's enough to drive any man's 
heart into his boots to see 'em together 
— and no mistake at all about it. I 
never shall forget her first comin' 
here ; he wrote to her on the Thurs- 
day to come — I know he did, 'cos I 
took the letter. Uncommon fidgety he 
was all day to be sure, and in the even- 
ing he goes down into the office, and 
he says to Jacobs, says he, ' Sir, can I 
have the loan of a private room for a 
few minutes this evening, without in- 
curring any additional expense — just 
to see my wife in ? ' says he. Jacobs 
looked as much as to say — ' Strike me 
bountiful if you ain't one of the modest 
sort ! ' but as the gen'lm'n who had 
been in the back parlour had just gone 
out, and had paid for it for that day, 
he says — werry grave — ( Sir,' says he, 
* it 's agin our rules to let private rooms 
to our lodgers on gratis terms, but,' 
says he, ' for a gentleman, I don't mind 
breaking through them for once.' So 
then he turns round to me, and says, 
1 Ikey, put two mould candles in the 
back parlour, and charge 'em to this 
gen'lm'n's account,' vich I did. Veil, 
by-and-by a hackney-coach comes up 
to the door, and there, sure enough. 
was the young lady, wrapped up in a 
hopera-cloak, as it might be, and all 
alone. I opened the gate that night, so 
I went up when the coach come, and 
he vos a waitin' at the parlour-door — 



and wasn't he a trembling, neither ? 
The poor creetur see him, and could 
hardly walk to meet him. ' Oh, Harry ! ' 
she says, ' that it should have come to 
this ; and all for my sake,' says she, 
putting her hand upon his shoulder. 
So he puts his arm round her pretty 
little waist, and leading her geutly a 
little way into the room, so that he 
might be able to shut the door, he says, 
so kind and soft-like — ' Why, Kate/ 
says he " 

" Here 's the gentleman you want," 
said 1 key, abruptly breaking off in his 
story, and introducing Mr. Gabriel 
Parsons to the crest-fallen Watkins 
Tottle, who at that moment entered 
the room. Watkins advanced with a 
wooden expression of passive endur- 
ance, and accepted the hand which 
Mr. Gabriel Parsons held out. 

" I want to speak to you," said Ga- 
briel, with a look strongly expressive 
of his dislike of the company. 

" This way," replied the imprisoned 
one, leading the way to the front 
drawing-room, where rich debtors did 
the luxurious at the rate of a couple of 
guineas a day. 

" Well, here I am," said Watkins, 

as he sat down on the sofa ; and 

placing the palms of his hands on his 

j knees, anxiously glanced at his friend's 

j countenance. 

" Yes ; and here you 're likely to 
be," said Gabriel, coolly, as he rattled 
J the money in his unmentionable 
pockets, and looked out of the window. 

" What 's the amount with the 
costs V inquired Parsons, after an 
awkward pause. 

"37?. 35-. 10c?." 

" Have you any money ? " 

" Nine and sixpence halfpenny." 

Mr. Gabriel Parsons walked up and 
down the room for a few seconds, 
before he could make up his mind to 
disclose the plan he had formed ; he 
was accustomed to drive hard bargains, 
but was always most anxious to con- 
ceal his avarice. At length he stopped 
short, and said, — " Tottle, you owe me 
fifty pounds." 

" I do." 



MR. WATKINS TOTTLE. 



279 



" And from all I see, I infer that 
you are likely to owe it to me." 
" I fear I am." 

" Though you have every disposition 
to pay me if you could 1 " 
" Certainly." 

" Then," said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, 
" listen ; here 's my proposition. You 
know my way of old. Accept it — yes 
or no — I will or I won't. I '11 pay the 
debt and costs, and I '11 lend you 1 01. 
more (which, added to your annuity, 
will enable you to carry on the Avar 
well) if you'll give me your note of 
hand to pay me one hundred and fifty 
pounds within six months after you are 
married to Miss Lillerton." 

"My dear " 

" Stop a minute — on one condition ; 
and that is, that you propose to Miss 
Lillerton at once." 

" At once ! My dear Parsons, con- 
sider." 

" It 's for you to consider, not me. 
She knows you well from reputation, 
though she did not know you personally 
until lately. Notwithstanding all her 
maiden modesty, I think she 'd be 
devilish glad to get married out of 
hand, with as little delay as possible. 
My wife has sounded her on the sub- 
ject, and she has confessed." 

" What — what ?" eagerly interrupted 
the enamoured Watkins. 

"Why," replied Parsons, "to say 
exactly what she has confessed, would 
be rather difficult, because they only 
spoke in hints, and so forth ; but my 
wife, who is no bad judge in these 
cases, declared to me that what she 
had confessed was as good as to say 
that she was not insensible of your 
merits — in fact, that no other man 
should have her." 

Mr. Watkins Tottle rose hastily 
from his seat, and rang the bell. 

" What 's that for ? " inquired Par- 
sons. 

" I want to send the man for the 
bill stamp," repliedMr. Watkins Tottle. 

" Then you've made up your mind ? " 

" I have," — and they shook hands 
most cordially. The note of hand was 
given — the debt and costs were paid — 



I key was satisfied for his trouble, and 
the two friends soon found themselves 
on that side of Mr.. Solomon Jacobs's 
establishment, on which most of his 
visitors were very happy when they 
found themselves once again — to wit, 
the outside. 

" Now," said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, 
as they drove to Norwood together — 
"you shall have an opportunity to 
make the disclosure to-night, and mind 
you speak out, Tottle." 

" I will — I will ! " replied Watkins, 
valorously. 

" How I should like to see. you to- 
gether," ejaculated Mr. Gabriel Par- 
sons. — " What fun ! " — and he laughed 
so long and so loudly, that he discon- 
certed Mr. Watkins Tottle, and 
frightened the horse. 

" There 's Fanny and your intended 
walking about on the lawn," said Ga- 
briel, as they approached the house — 
" Mind your eye, Tottle." 

" Never fear," replied Watkins, 
resolutely, as he made his way to the 
spot where the ladies were walking. 

" Here's Mr. Tottle, my dear, 1 ' said 
Mrs. Parsons, addressing Miss Liller- 
ton. The lady turned quickly round, 
and acknowledged his courteous salute 
with the same sort of confusion that 
Watkins had noticed on their first in- 
terview, but with something like a 
slight expression of disappointment or 
carelessness. 

" Did you see how glad she was to 
see you I " whispered Parsons to his 
friend. 

« Why I really thought she looked 
as if she would rather have seen some- 
body else," replied Tottle. 

" Pooh, nonsense ! " whispered Par- 
sons again — " it's always the way with 
the women, young or old. They never 
show how delighted they are to see 
those whose presence makes their 
hearts beat. It's the way with the 
whole sex, and no man should have 
lived to your time of life without 
knowing it. Fanny confessed it to me, 
when we were first married, over and 
over again — see what it is to have a 
wife." 



230 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



"Certainly," whispered Tottle, whose 
courage was s r anishing fast. 

" Well, now, you *d better begin to 
pave the way," said Parsons, who, 
having invested some money in the 
speculation, assumed the office of 
director. 

" Yes, yes, I will — presently," re- 
plied Tottle, greatly flurried. 

"Say something to her, man," 
urged Parsons again. " Confound it ! 
pay her a compliment, can't you ? " 

" No ! not till after dinner," replied 
the bashful Tottle, anxious to postpone 
the evil moment. 

" Well, gentlemen," said Mrs. Par- 
sons, " you are really very polite ; you 
stay away the whole morning, after 
promising to take us out, and when 
you do come home, you stand whisper- 
ing together and take no notice of 
us." 

" We were talking of the business,my 
dear, which detained us this morning," 
replied Parsons, looking significantly 
at Tottle. 

"Dear me! how very quickly the 
morning has gone," said Miss Liller- 
ton, referring to the gold watch, which 
was wound up on state occasions, 
whether it required it or not. 

" I think it has passed very slowly," 
mildly suggested Tottle. 

(" That 's right — bravo ! ") whis- 
pered Parsons." 

" Indeed ! " said Miss Lillerton, with 
an air of majestic surprise. 

" I can only impute it to my una- 
voidable absence from your society, 
madam," said Watkins, " and that of 
Mrs. Parsons." 

During this short dialogue, the 
ladies had been leading the way to the 
house. 

" What the deuce did you stick 
Fanny into that last compliment for ?" 
inquired Parsons, as they followed to- 
gether ; "it quite spoilt the effect." 

" Oh! it really would have been too 
broad without," replied Watkins 
Tottle, " much too broad !" 

" He 's mad ! " Parsons whispered 
his wife, as they entered the drawing- 
room, " mad from modesty." 



" Dear me !" ejaculated the lady, " I 
never heard of such a thing." 

" You '11 find we have quite a family 
dinner, Mr. Tottle," said Mrs. Par- 
sons, when they sat down to table : 
" Miss Lillerton is one of us, and, of 
course, we make no stranger of you." 

Mr. Watkins Tottle expressed a 
hope that the Parsons family never 
would make a stranger of him ; and 
wished internally that his bashfulness 
would allow him to feel a little less 
like a stranger himself. 

" Take off the covers, Martha," said 
Mrs. Parsons, directing the shifting of 
the scenery with great anxiety. The 
order was obeyed, and a pair of boiled 
fowls, with tongue and et ceteras, were 
displayed at the top, and a fillet of veal 
at the bottom. On one side of the 
table two green sauce-tureens, with 
ladles of the same, were setting to 
each other in a green dish ; and on 
the other was a curried rabbit, in a 
brown suit, turned up with lemon. 

" Miss Lillerton, my dear," said 
Mrs. Parsons, " shall I assist you ?" 

"Thank you, no; I think I'll 
trouble Mr. Tottle." 

" Watkins started — trembled — 
helped the rabbit — and broke a 
tumbler. The countenance of the 
lady of the house, which had been all 
smiles previously, underwent an awful 
change. 

" Extremely sorry," stammered 
Watkins, assisting himself to currie 
and parsley and butter, in the extre- 
mity of his confusion. 

" Not the least consequence," re- 
plied Mrs. Parsons, in a tone which 
implied that it was of the greatest 
consequence possible, — directing aside 
the researches of the boy, who was 
groping under the table for the bits of 
broken glass. 

" I presume," said Miss Lillerton, 
" that Mr. Tottle is aware of the 
interest which bachelors usually pay in 
such cases ; a dozen glasses for one is 
the lowest penalty. 

Mr. Gabriel Parsons gave his friend 
an admonitory tread on the toe. Here 
was a clear hint that the sooner he 



MR. W ATKINS TOTTLE. 



281 



ceased to be a bachelor and emanci- 
pated himself from such penalties, the 
better. Mr. Watkins Tottle viewed 
the observation in the same light, and 
challenged Mrs. Parsons to take wine, 
with a degree of presence of mind, 
which, under all the circumstances, 
was really extraordinary. 

u Miss Lillerton," said Gabriel," may 
I have the pleasure ? " 

" I shall be most happy." 

" Tottle, will you assist Miss Liller- 
ton, and pass the decanter. Thank 
you." (The usual pantomimic cere- 
mony of nodding and sipping gone 
through) — 

"Tottle, were you ever in Suffolk ? " 
inquired the master of the house, who 
was burning to tell one of his seven 
stock stories. 

" No," responded Watkins, adding, 
by way of a saving clause, " but I 've 
been in Devonshire. " 

" Ah ! " replied Gabriel, " it was in 
Suffolk that a rather singular circum- 
stance happened to me, many years 
ago. Did you ever happen to hear me 
mention it ? " 

Mr. Watkins Tottle had happened 
to hear his friend mention it some four 
hundred times. Of course he expressed 
great curiosity, and evinced the utmost 
impatience to hear the story again. 
Mr. Gabriel Parsons forthwith at- 
tempted to proceed, in spite of the 
interruptions to which, as our readers 
must frequently have observed, the 
master of the house is often exposed 
in such cases. We will attempt to 
give them an idea of our meaning. 

" When I was in Suffolk," said Mr. 
Gabriel Parsons 

" Take off the fowls first, Martha," 
said Mrs. Parsons. " I beg your par- 
don, my dear." 

" When I was in Suffolk," resumed 
Mr. Parsons, with an impatient glance 
at his wife, who pretended not to 
observe it, " which is now some years 
ago, business led me to the town of 
Bury St. Edmund's. I had to stop at 
the principal places in my way, and 
therefore, for the sake of convenience, 
I travelled in a gig. I left Sudbury 



one dark night — it was winter time — 
about nine o'clock ; the rain poured in 
torrents, the wind howled among the 
trees that skirted "the road-side, and I 
was obliged to proceed at a foot-pace, 
for I could hardly see my hand before 
me, it was so dark " 

" John," interrupted Mrs. Parsons, 
in a low, hollow voice, " don't spill that 
gravy." 

" Fanny," said Parsons impatiently, 
" I wish you 'd defer these domestic 
reproofs to some more suitable time. 
Really, my dear, these constant 'inter- 
ruptions are very annoying." 

" My dear, I didn't interrupt you," 
said Mrs. Parsons. 

" But, my dear, you did interrupt 
me," remonstrated Mr. Parsons. 

" How very absurd you are, my 
love ! I must give directions to the 
servants ; I am quite sure that if I sat 
here and allowed John to spill the 
gravy over the new carpet, you 'd be 
the first to find fault when you saw 
the stain to-morrow morning." 

" Well," continued Gabriel, with a 
resigned air, as if he knew there was 
no getting over the point about the 
carpet, " I was just saying, it was so 
dark that I could hardly see my hand 
before me. The road was very lonely, 
and I assure you, Tottle (this was a 
device to arrest the wandering atten- 
tion of that individual, which was 
distracted by a confidential communi- 
cation between Mrs. Parsons and 
Martha, accompanied by the delivery 
of a large bunch of keys), I assure 
you, Tottle, I became somehow im- 
pressed with a sense of the loneliness 
of my situation — " 

" Pie to your master," interrupted 
Mrs. Parsons, again directing the 
servant. 

" Now, pray, my dear," remonstrated 
Parsons once more, very pettishly. 
Mrs. P. turned up her hands and eye- 
brows, and appealed in dumb show to 
Miss Lillerton. "As I turned a corner 
of the road," resumed Gabriel, " the 
horse stopped short, and reared tre- 
mendously. I pulled up, jumped out, 
ran to his head, and found a man 



232 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



lying on his back in the middle of 
the road, with his eyes fixed on the 
sky. I thought he was dead ; but no, 
he was alive, and there appeared to 
be nothing the matter with him. He 
jumped up, and putting his hand to 
his chest, and fixing upon me the 
most earnest gaze you can imagine, 
exclaimed " 

" Pudding here," said Mrs. Parsons. 

" Oh ! it 's no use," exclaimed the 
host, now rendered desperate. u Here, 
Tottle ; a glass of wine. It 's useless 
to attempt relating anything when Mrs. 
Parsons is present." 

This attack was received in the 
usual way. Mrs. Parsons talked to 
Miss Lillerton and oft her better half ; 
expatiated on the impatience of men 
generally ; hinted that her husband 
was peculiarly vicious in this respect, 
aud woundup by insinuating that she 
must be one of the best tempers that 
ever existed, or she never could put up 
with it. Really what she had to endure 
sometimes, was more than any one who 
saw her in every-day life could by 
possibility suppose. — The story was 
now a painful subject, and therefore 
Mr. Parsons declined to enter into 
any details, and contented himself by 
stating that the man was a maniac, 
who had escaped from a neighbouring 
mad- house. 

The cloth was removed ; the ladies 
soon afterwards retired, and Miss 
Lillerton played the piano in the draw- 
ing-room overhead, very loudly, for 
the edification of the visiter. Mr. 
Watkins Tottle and Mr. Gabriel Par- 
sons sat chatting comfortably enough, 
until the conclusion of the second 
bottle, when the latter, in proposing 
an adjournment to the drawing-room, 
informed Watkins that he had con- 
certed a plan with his wife, for leaving 
him and Miss Lillerton alone, soon 
after tea. 

" I say," said Tottle, as they went 
up stairs, " don't you think it would 
be better if we put it off till — till — to- 
morrow ? " 

" Don't you think it would have been 
much better if I had left you in that 



wretched hole I found you in this 
morning 1 " retorted Parsons, bluntly. 

" Well — well — I only made a sug- 
gestion," said poor Watkins Tottle, 
with a deep sigh. 

Tea was soon concluded, and Miss 
Lillerton drawing a small work-table 
on one side of the fire, and placing a 
little wooden frame upon it, some- 
thing like a miniature clay-mill without 
the horse, was soon busily engaged in 
making a watch-guard with brown silk. 

" God bless me ! " exclaimed Par- 
sons, starting up with well feigned 
surprise, " I 've forgotten those con- 
founded letters. Tottle, I know you 5 11 
excuse me." 

If Tottle had been a free agent, he 
would have allowed no one to leave 
the room on any pretence, except him- 
self. As it was, however, he was 
obliged to look cheerful when Parsons 
quitted the apartment. 

He had scarcely left, when Martha 
put her head into the room, with — 
" Please, ma'am, you 're wanted." 

Mrs. Parsons left the room, shut the 
door carefully after her, and Mr. Wat- 
kins Tottle was left aione with Miss 
Lillerton. 

For the first five minutes there was 
a dead silence. — Mr. Watkins Tottle 
was thinking how he should begin, and 
Miss Lillerton appeared to be thinking 
of nothing. The fire was burning low ; 
Mr. Watkins Tottle stirred it, and put 
some coals on. 

" Hem ! " coughed Miss Lillerton ; 
Mr. Watkins Tottle thought the fair 
creature had spoken. " I beg your 
pardon," said he. 

" Eh ? " 

" I thought you spoke." 

« No." 

« Oh ! " 

" There are some books on the sofa, 
Mr. Tottle, if you would like to look at 
them," said Miss Lillerton, after the 
lapse of another five minutes. 

" No, thank you," returned Wat- 
kins : and then he added, with a 
courage which was perfectly astonish- 
ing, even to himself, " Madam, that is 
Miss Lillerton, I wish to speak to you." 



MR. W ATKINS TOTTLE. 



" To me ! " said Miss Lillerton, 
letting the silk drop from her hands, 
and sliding her chair back a few paces. 
— " Speak — to me ! " 

a To you, madam — and on the sub- 
ject of the state of your affections." 
The lady hastily rose, and would have 
left the room ; but Mr. Watkins Tottle 
gently detained her by the hand, and 
holding it as far from him as the joint 
length of their arms would permit, he 
thus proceeded : " Pray do not mis- 
understand me, or suppose that I am 
led to address you, after so short an 
acquaintance, by any feeling of my 
own merits — for merits I have none 
which could give me a claim to your 
hand. I hope you will acquit me of 
any presumption when I explain that 
I have been acquainted through Mrs. 
Parsons, with the state — that is, that 
Mrs. Parsons has told me — at least, 

not Mrs. Parsons, but- " here 

Watkins began to wander, but Miss 
Lillerton relieved him. 

"Am I to understand, Mr. Tottle, 
that Mrs. Parsons has acquainted you 
with my feeling — my affection — I mean 
my respect, for an individual of the 
opposite sex ? " 

" She has." 

" Then, what 1" inquired Miss Liller- 
ton, averting her face, with a girlish 
air, "what could induce yoib to seek 
such an interview as this ? What can 
your object be ? How can I promote 
your happiness, Mr. Tottle ?" 

Here was the time for a flourish — 
" By allowing me," replied Watkins, 
falling bump on his knees, and break- 
ing two brace-buttons and a waistcoat- 
string, in the act — " By allowing me to 
be your slave, your servant — in short, 
by unreservedly making me the con- 
fident of your heart's feelings — may 1 
say, for the promotion of your own 
happiness — may I say, in order that 
you may become the wife of a kind 
and affectionate husband ?" 

" Disinterested creature ! " exclaimed 
Miss Lillerton, hiding her face in a 
white pocket-handkerchief with an eye- 
let-hole border. m 

Mr. Watkins Tottle thought that if 



the lady knew all, she might possibly 
alter her opinion on this last point. 
He raised the tip of her middle finger 
ceremoniously to his lips, and got off 
his knees as gracefully as he could. 
"My information was correct?" he 
tremulously inquired, when he was 
once more on his feet. 

"It was." Watkins elevated his 
hands, and looked up to the ornament 
in the centre of the ceiling, which had 
been made for a lamp, by way of ex- 
pressing his rapture. 

" Our situation, Mr. Tottle," resumed 
the lady, glancing at him through one 
of the eyelet-holes, " is a most peculiar 
and delicate one." 

« It is," said Mr. Tottle. 

a Our acquaintance has been of so 
short duration," said Miss Lillerton. 

" Only a week," assented Watkins 
Tottle. 

" Oh ! more than that," exclaimed 
the lady, in a tone of surprise. 

" Indeed ! " said Tottle. 

" More than a month — more than 
two months ! " said Miss Lillerton. 

"Rather odd, this," thought Watkins. 

" Oh !" he said, recollecting Parsons' s 
assurance that she had known him from 
report, " I understand. But, my dear 
madam, pray consider. The longer 
this acquaintance has existed, the less 
reason is there for delay now. Why 
not at once fix a period for grati- 
fying the hopes of your devoted ad- 
mirer?" 

" It has been represented to me 
again and again that this is the course 
I ought to pursue," replied Miss Liller- 
ton, " but pardon my feelings of deli- 
cacy, Mr. Tottle — pray excuse this 
embarrassment— I have peculiar ideas 
on such subjects, and I am quite sure 
that I never could summon up forti- 
tude enough to name the clay to my 
future husband." 

"Then allow me to name it," said 
Tottle eagerly. 

" 1 should like to fix it myself," 
replied Miss Lillerton, bashfully, " but 
I cannot do so without at once resort- 
ing to a third party." 

" A third party !' J thought Watkins 



234 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



Tottle ; " who the deuce is that to be, 
I wonder I" 

" Mr. Tottle/* continued Miss Liller- 
ton, " you have made me a most dis- 
interested and kind offer — that offer I 
accept. Will you at once be the bearer 
of a note from me to — to Mr. Timson 1 " 

" Mr. Timson ! " said Watkins. 

" After what has passed between us," 
responded Miss Lillerton, still averting 
her head, " you must understand whom 
I mean ; Mr. Timson, the — the — clergy- 
man." 

" Mr. Timson, the clergyman !" 
ejaculated Watkins Tottle, in a state of 
inexpressible beatitude, and positive 
wonder at his own success. " Angel ! 
Certainly — this moment ! " 

" 1 '11 prepare it immediately," said 
Miss Lillerton, making for the door ; 
" the events of this day have flurried 
me so much, Mr. Tottle, that I shall 
not leave my room again this evening; I 
will send you the note by the servant." 

" Stay — stay," cried Watkins Tottle, 
still keeping a most respectful distance 
from the lady ; " when shall we meet 
again ? " 

" Oh ! Mr. Tottle," replied Miss 
Lillerton, coquettishly, " when we are 
married, I can never see you too often, 
nor thank you too much ;" and she left 
the room. 

Mr. Watkins Tottle flung himself 
into an arm-chair, and indulged in the 
most delicious reveries of future bliss, 
in which the idea of " Five hundred 
pounds per annum, with an uncon- 
trolled power of disposing of it by her 
last will and testament," was somehow 
or other the foremost. He had gone 
through the interview so well, and it 
had terminated so admirably, that he 
almost began to wish he had expressly 
stipulated for the settlement of the 
annual five hundred on himself 

" May I come in V said Mr. Gabriel 
Parsons, peeping in at the door. 

" You may," replied Watkins. 

" Well, have you done it ? " anxiously 
inquired Gabriel. 

" Have I done it ! " said Watkins 
Tottle, " Hush — I 'm going to the 
clergyman." 



" No ! " said Parsons. " How well 
you have managed it !" 

" Where does Timson live ? " in- 
quired Watkins. 

"At his uncle's," replied Gabriel, 
" just round the lane. He 's waiting for 
a living, and has been assisting his uncle 
here for the last two or three months. 
But how well you have done it — I didn't 
think you could have carried it off so! " 

Mr. Watkins Tottle was proceeding 
to demonstrate that the Richardsonian 
principle was the best on which love 
could possibly be made, when he was 
interrupted by the entrance of Martha, 
with a little pink note folded like a 
fancy cocked-hat. 

Miss Lillerton's compliments," said 
Martha, as she delivered it into Tottle's 
hands, and vanished. 

"Do you observe the delicacy?" 
said Tottle, appealing to Mr. Gabriel 
Parsons. " Compliments not love, by 
the servant, eh ? " 

Mr. Gabriel Parsons didn't exactly 
know what reply to make, so he poked 
the forefinger of his right hand be- 
tween the third and fourth ribs of Mr. 
Watkins Tottle. 

"Come,"' said Watkins, when the 
explosion of mirth, consequent on this 
practical jest, had subsided, " we '11 be 
off at once — let 's lose no time." 

" Capital ! " echoed Gabriel Parsons ; 
and in five minutes they were at the 
garden-gate of the villa tenanted by the 
uncle of Mr. Timson. 

" Is Mr. Charles Timson at home ? " 
inquired Mr. Watkins Tottle of Mr. 
Charles Timson's uncle's man. 

" Mr. Charles is at home," replied 
the man, stammering ; but he desired 
me to say he couldn't be interrupted, 
sir, by any of the parishioners." 

" / am not a parishioner," replied 
Watkins. 

" Is Mr. Charles writing a sermon, 
Tom ? " inquired Parsons, thrusting 
himself forward. 

" No, Mr. Parsons, sir ; he 's not 
exactly writing a sermon, but he is 
practising the violoncello in his own 
bedroom, a^i gave strict orders not to 
be disturbed." 



MR. WATKINS TOTTLE. 



285 



" Say I 'm here," implied Gabriel, 
leading the way across the garden ; 
" Mr. Parsons and Mr, Tottle, on 
private and particular business." 

They were shown into the parlour, 
and the servant departed to deliver 
his message. The distant groaning of 
the violoncello ceased ; footsteps were 
heard on the stairs ; and Mr. Tim son 
presented himself, and shook hands 
with Parsons with the utmost cordiality. 

" How do you do, sir ? " said Wat- 
kins Tottle, with great solemnity. 

"How do you do, sir?" replied 
Timson, with as much coldness as if it 
were a matter of perfect indifference 
to him how he did, as it very likely was. 

" I beg to deliver this note to you," 
said Watkins Tottle, producing the 
cocked-hat. 

" From Miss Lillerton ! " said Tim- 
son, suddenly changing colour. " Pray 
sit down." 

Mr. Watkins Tottle sat down ; and 
while Timson perused the note, fixed 
his eyes on an oyster-sauce-coloured 
portrait of the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, which hung over the fireplace. 

Mr. Timson rose from his seat when 
he had concluded the note, and looked 
dubiously at Parsons — " May I ask," 
he inquired, appealing to Watkins 
Tottle, " whether our friend here is ac- 
quainted with the object of your visit i" 

" Our friend is in my confidence," 
replied Watkins, with considerable 
importance. 

" Then, sir," said Timson, seizing 
both Tottle's hands, " allow me in his 
presence to thank you most unfeignedly 
and cordially, for the noble part you 
have acted in this affair." 

" He thinks I recommended him," 
thought Tottle. « Confound these fel- 
lows ! they never think of anything 
but their fees." 

" I deeply regret having misunder- 
stood your intentions, my dear sir,"' 
continued Timson. " Disinterested 
and manly, indeed ! There are very 
few men who would have acted as you 
have done." 

Mr. Watkins Tottle could not help 
thinking that this last remark was any- 



thing but complimentary. He there- 
fore inquired, rather hastily, " When 
is it to be % " 

« On Thursday," replied Timson,— 
" on Thursday morning at half-past 
eight." 

" Uncommonly early," observed 
Watkins Tottle, with an air of tri- 
umphant self-denial. " I shall hardly 
be able to get down here by that 
hour." (This was intended for a joke.) 

" Never mind, my dear fellow," 
replied Timson, all suavity, shaking 
hands with Tottle again most heartily, 
" so long as we see you to breakfast, 
you know " 

" Eh ! " said Parsons, with one of 
the most extraordinary expressions of 
countenance that ever appeared in a 
human face. 

" What ! " ejaculated Watkins Tot- 
tle, at the same moment. 

" I say that so long as we see you 
to breakfast," repeated Timson, " we 
will excuse your being absent from the 
ceremony, though of course your pre- 
sence at it would give us the utmost 
pleasure." 

Mr. Watkins Tottle staggered against 
the wall, and fixed his eyes on Timson 
with appalling perseverance. 

" Timson," said Parsons, hurriedly 
brushing his hat with his left arm, 
a when you say ' us,' whom do you 
mean 1 " 

Mr. Timson looked foolish in his 
turn, when he replied, " Why — Mrs. 
Timson that will be this day week : 
Miss Lillerton that is — " 

" Now don't stare at that idiot in 
the corner," angrily exclaimed Parsons, 
as the extraordinary convulsions of 
Watkins Tottle's countenance excited 
the wondering gaze of Timson, — " but 
have the goodness to tell me in three 
words the contents of that note." 

" This note," replied Timson, " is 
from Miss Lillerton, to whom I have 
been for the last five weeks regularly 
engaged. Her singular scruples and 
strange feeling on some points have 
hitherto prevented my bringing the 
engagement to that termination which 
I so anxiously desire. She informs 



286 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



me here, that she sounded Mrs. Par- 
sons with the view of making her her 
confidant and go-between, that Mrs. 
Parsons informed this elderly gentle- 
man, Mr. Tottle, of the circumstance, 
and that he, in the most kind and deli- 
cate terms, offered to assist us in any 
way, and even undertook to convey 
this note, which contains the promise 
I have long sought in vain — an act of 
kindness for which I can never be suf- 
ficiently grateful." 

" Good night, Timson," said Par- 
sons, hurrying off, and carrying the 
bewildered Tottle with him. 

" Won't you stay — and have some- 
thing \ " said Timson. 

" No, thank ye," replied Parsons ; 
" I 've had quite enough ; " and away 
he went, followed by Watkins Tottle 
in a state of supefaction. 

Mr. Gabriel Parsons whistled until 
they had walked some quarter of a 
mile past his own gate, when he sud- 
denly stopped, and said — 

11 You are a clever fellow, Tottle, 
ain't you ? " 

" 1 don't know," said the unfortu- 
nate Watkins. 

"I suppose you '11 say this is Fanny's 
fault, won't you 1 " inquired Gabriel. 

" I don't know anything about it," 
replied the bewildered Tottle. 

" Well," said Parsons, turning on 
his heel to go home, " the next time 
you make an offer, you had better 
speak plainly, and don't throw a 
chance away. And the next time 
you 're locked up in a spunging-house, 
just wait there till I come and take 
you out, there's a good fellow." 



How, or at what hour, Mr. Watkins 
Tottle returned to Cecil-street is un- 
known. His boots were seen outside 
his bedroom-door next morning • but 
we have the authority of his landlady 
for stating that he neither emerged 
therefrom nor accepted sustenance for 
four-and-twenty hours. At the expi- 
ration of that period, and when a 
council of war was being held in the 
kitchen on the propriety of summon- 
ing the parochial beadle to break his 
door open, he rang his bell, and de- 
manded a cup of milk-and-water. The 
next morning he went through the 
formalities of eating and drinking as 
usual, but a week afterwards he was 
seized with a relapse, while perusing 
the list of marriages in a morning 
paper, from which he never perfectly 
recovered. 

A few weeks after the last-named 
occurrence, the body of a gentleman 
unknown, was found in the Regent's 
canal. In the trousers-pockets were 
four shillings and threepence half- 
penny ; a matrimonial advertisement 
from a lady, which appeared to have 
been cut cut of a Sunday paper ; a 
toothpick, and a card-case, which it is 
confidently believed would have led to 
the identification of the unfortunate 
gentleman, but for the circumstance of 
there being none but blank cards in it, 
Mr. Watkins Tottle absented himself 
from his lodgings shortly before. A 
bill, which has not been taken up, was 
presented next morning ; and a bill, 
which has not been taken down, was 
soon afterwards affixed in his parlour 
window. 



THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING. 



287 



CHAPTER XL 



THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING. 

[The Author may he permitted to observe that this sketch was published some time before 
the Farce entitled " The Christening" was first represented.] 



Mr. Nicodemus Dumps, or, as his ac- 
quaintance called him, " long Dumps," 
was a bachelor, six feet high, and fifty 
years old ; cross, cadaverous, odd, and 
ill-natured. He was never happy but 
when he was miserable ; and always 
miserable when he had the best reason 
to be happy. The only real comfort 
of his existence was to make every 
body about him wretched — then he 
might be truly said to enjoy life. He 
was afflicted with a situation in the 
Bank worth five hundred a-year, and 
he rented a " first-floor furnished," at 
Pentonville, which he originally took 
because it commanded a dismal pro- 
spect of an adjacent churchyard. He 
was familiar with the face of every 
tombstone, and the burial service 
seemed to excite his strongest sym- 
pathy. His friends said he was surly 
— he insisted he was nervous ; they 
thought him a lucky dog, but he pro- 
tested that he was " the most unfortu- 
nate man in the world." Cold as he 
was, and wretched as he declared him- 
self to be, he was not wholly unsus- 
ceptible of attachments. He revered 
the memory of Hoyle, as he was hrm- 
self an admirable and imperturbable 
whist-player, and he chuckled with 
delight at a fretful and impatient ad- 
versary. He adored King Herod for 
his massacre of the innocents ; and if 
he hated one thing more than another, 
it was a child. However, he could 
hardly be said to hate anything in 
particular, because he disliked every-* 
thing in general ; but perhaps his 
greatest antipathies were cabs, old 
women, doors that would not shut, 
musical amateurs, and omnibus cads. 
He subscribed to the " Society for the 
Suppression of Vice " for the pleasure 
of putting a stop to any harmless 



amusements ; and he contributed 
largely towards the support of two 
itinerant methodist parsons, in the 
amiable hope that if circumstances 
rendered any people happy in this 
woi'ld, they might perchance be ren- 
dered miserable by fears for the next. 

Mr. Dumps had a nephew who had 
been married about a year, and who 
was somewhat of a favourite with his 
uncle, because he was an admirable 
subject to exercise his misery-creating 
powers upon. Mr. Charles Kitterbell 
was a small, sharp, spare man, with a 
very large head, and a broad, good- 
humoured countenance. He looked 
like a faded giant, with the head and 
face partially restored ; and he had a 
cast in his eye which rendered it quite 
impossible for any one with whom he 
conversed to know where he was look- 
ing. His eyes appeared fixed on the 
wall, and he was staring you out of 
countenance ; in short, there was no 
catching his eye, and perhaps it is a 
merciful dispensation of Providence 
that such eyes are not catching. In 
addition to these characteristics, it 
may be added that Mr. Charles Kitter- 
bell was one of the most credulous and 
matter-of-fact little personages that 
ever took to himself a wife, and for 
himself a house in Great Russel- 
street, Bedford-square. (Uncle Dumps 
always dropped the "Bedford-square," 
and inserted in lieu thereof the dread- 
ful words " Tottenham-court-road.") 

" No, but uncle, 'pon my life you 
must — you must promise to be god- 
father," said Mr. Kitterbell, as he sat 
in conversation with his respected 
relative one morning. 

"I cannot, indeed I cannot," re- 
turned Dumps. 

" Well, but why not ? Jemima will 



288 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



think it very unkind. It 's very little 
trouble." 

" As to the trouble," rejoined the 
most unhappy man in existence, "I 
don't mind that ; but my nerves are in 
that state — I cannot go through the 
ceremony. You know I don't like 
going out. — For God's sake, Charles, 
don't fidget with that stool so ; you '11 
drive me mad." Mr. Kitterbell, quite 
regardless of his uncle's nerves, had 
occupied himself for some ten minutes 
in describing a circle on the floor with 
one leg of the office-stool on which he 
was seated, keeping the other three up 
in the air, and holding fast on by the 
desk. 

"I beg your pardon, uncle," said 
Kitterbell, quite abashed, suddenly re- 
leasing his hold of the desk, and bring- 
ing the three wandering legs back to 
the floor, with a force sufficient to 
drive them through it. 

" But come, don't refuse. If it 's a 
boy, you know, we must have two 
godfathers." 

"If it 's a boy ! " said Dumps ; " why 
can't you say at once whether it is a 
boy or not ? " 

" I should be very happy to tell you, 
but it 's impossible I can undertake to 
say whether it 's a girl or a boy, if the 
child isn't born yet." 

" Not born yet ! " echoed Dumps, 
with a gleam of hope lighting up his 
lugubrious visage. " Oh, well, it may 
be a girl, and then you won't want 
me ; or if it is a boy, it may die before 
it is christened." 

" I hope not," said the father that 
expected to be, looking very grave. 

"I hope not," acquiesced Dumps, 
evidently pleased with the subject. He 
was beginning to get happy. " 1 hope 
not, but distressing cases frequently 
occur during the first two or three 
days of a child's life ; fits, I am told, 
are exceedingly common, and alarming 
convulsions are almost matters of 
course." 

" Lord, uncle," ejaculated little Kit- 
terbell, gasping for breath. 

" Yes ; my landlady was confined- 
let me see — last Tuesday : an uncom- 



monly fine boy. On the Thursday 
night the nurse was sitting with him 
upon her knee before the fire, and he 
was as well as possible. Suddenly he 
became black in the face, and alarm- 
ingly spasmodic. The medical man 
was instantly sent for, and every 
remedy was tried, but — " 

" How frightful ! " interrupted the 
horror-stricken Kitterbell. 

" The child died, of course. How- 
ever, your child may not die ; and if 
it should be a boy, and should live to 
be christened, why I suppose I must 
be one of the sponsors." Dumps was 
evidently good-natured on the faith of 
his anticipations. 

"Thank you, uncle," said his agi- 
tated nephew, grasping his hand as 
warmly as if he had done him some 
essential service. Perhaps I had bet- 
ter not tell Mrs. K. what you have 
mentioned." 

" Why, if she 's low spirited, per- 
haps you had better not mention the 
melancholy case to her," returned 
Dumps, who of course had invented 
the whole story ; " though perhaps it 
would be but doing your duty as a 
husband to prepare her for the worst." 

A day or two afterwards, as Dumps 
was perusing a morning paper at the 
chop-house which he regularly fre- 
quented, the following paragraph met 
his eye : — 

" Births. — On Saturday, the 18th inst., in 
Great Russell-street, the lady of Charles Kit- 
terbell, Esq., of a son." 

" It is a boy ! " he exclaimed, dash- 
ing down the paper, to the astonish- 
ment of the waiters. "It is a boy !" 
But he speedily regained his compo- 
sure as his eye rested on a paragraph 
quoting the number of infant deaths 
from the bills of mortality. 

Six weeks passed away, and as no 
communication had been received from 
the Kitterbells, Dumps was beginning 
to flatter himself that the child was 
dead, when the following note pain- 
fully resolved his doubts : — 

Great Russell-street, 

Monday morning. 

"Dear Uncle, — You will be de- 



THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING. 



289 



lighted to hear that my dear Jemima 
has left her room, and that your future 
godson is getting on capitally. He 
was very thin at first, but he is getting 
much larger, and nurse says he is 
filling out every day. He cries a good 
deal, and is a very singular colour, 
which made Jemima and me rather 
uncomfortable ; but as nurse says it 's 
natural, and as of course we know 
nothing about these things yet, we are 
quite satisfied with what nurse says. 
We think he will be a sharp child ; 
and nurse says she 's sure he will, be- 
cause he never goes to sleep. You 
%vill readily believe that we are all very 
happy, only we 're a little worn out for 
want of rest, as he keeps us awake all 
night ; but this we must expect, nurse 
says, for the first six or eight months. 
He has been vaccinated, but in conse- 
quence of the operation being rather 
awkwardly performed, some small par- 
ticles of glass were introduced into the 
arm with the matter. Perhaps this 
may in some degree account for his 
being rather fractious ; at least, so 
nurse says. We propose to have him 
christened at twelve o'clock on Friday, 
at Saint George's church, in Hart- 
street, by the name of Frederick 
Charles William. Pray don't be later 
than a quarter before twelve. We 
shall have a very few friends in the 
evening, when of course we shall see 
you. I am sorry to say that the dear 
boy appears rather restless and uneasy 
to-day : the cause, I fear, is fever. 
" Believe me, dear Uncle, 
" Yours affectionately, 
" Charles Kitterbell. 

" P.S. — I open this note to say that 
we have just discovered the cause of 
little Frederick's restlessness. It is 
not fever, as I apprehended, but a 
small pin, which nurse accidentally 
stuck in his leg yesterday evening. We 
have taken it out, and he appears more 
composed, though he still sobs a good 
deal." 

It is almost unnecessary to say that 
the perusal of the above interesting 
statement was no 

No. 191. 



2,reat relief to the 



mind of the hypochondriacal Dumps. 
It was impossible to recede, however, 
and so he put the best face — that is to 
say, an uncommonly miserable one — 
upon the matter ; and purchased a 
handsome silver mug for the infant 
Kitterbell, upon which he ordered the 
initials "F. C. W. K," Avith the custo- 
mary untrained grape - vine - looking 
flourishes, and a large full stop, to be 
engraved forthwith. 

Monday was a fine day, Tuesday 
was delightful, Wednesday was equal 
to either, and Thursday was finer than 
ever; four successive fine days in 
London ! Hackney-coachmen became 
revolutionary, and crossing-sweepers 
began to doubt the existence of a First 
Cause. The Morning Herald informed 
its readers that an old woman in Cam- 
den Town had been heard to say that 
the fineness of the season was "un- 
precedented in the memory of the old- 
est inhabitant ;" and Islington clerks, 
with large families and small salaries, 
left off their black gaiters, disdained 
to carry their once green cotton um- 
brellas, and walked to town in the 
conscious pride of white stockings and 
cleanly brushed Bluchers. Dumps 
beheld all this with an eye of supreme 
contempt— his triumph was at hand. 
He knew that if it had been fine for 
four weeks instead of four days, it 
would rain when he went out ; he was 
lugubriously happy in the conviction 
that Friday would be a wretched day — 
and so it was. " I knew how it would 
be," said Dumps, as he turned round 
opposite the Mansion-house at half-past 
eleven o'clock on the Friday morning. 
I knew how it would be ; / am con- 
cerned, and that's enough;" — and 
certainly the appearance of the day 
was sufficient to depress the spirits of 
a much more buoyant-hearted indi- 
vidual than himself. It had rained, 
without a moment's cessation, since 
eight o'clock ; every body that passed 
up Cheapside, and down Cheapside, 
looked wet, cold, and dirty. All sorts 
of forgotten and long-concealed um- 
brellas had been put into requisition. 
Cabs whisked about, with the " fare " 

j }D 



290 



SKETCHES BY BOE. 



as carefully boxed up behind two 
glazed calico curtains as any mysterious 
picture in any one of Mrs. Radcliffe's 
castles ; omnibus horses smoked like 
steam-engines ; nobody thought • of 
" standing up " under doorways or 
arches ; they were painfully con- 
vinced it was a hopeless case ; and so 
everybody went hastily along, jumb- 
ling and jostling, and swearing and 
perspiring, and slipping about, like 
amateur skaters behind wooden chairs 
on the Serpentine on a frosty Sunday. 

Dumps paused ; he could not think 
of walking, being rather smart for the 
christening. If he took a cab he was 
sure to be spilt, and a hackney-coach 
was too expensive for his economical 
ideas. An omnibus was waiting at the 
opposite corner — it was a desperate 
case — he had never heard of an oniui- 
bus upsetting or running away, and if 
the cad did knock him down, he could 
"pull him up " in return. 

" Now, sir ! " cried the young gentle- 
man who officiated as " cad " to the 
" Lads of the Tillage," which was the 
name of the machine just noticed. 
Dumps crossed. 

" This vay, sir ! " shouted the driver 
of the " Hark -away," pulling up his 
vehicle immediately across the door of 
the opposition — " This vay, sir — he 's 
full." Dumps hesitated, whereupon 
the "Lads of the Village" commenced 
pouring out a torrent of abuse against 
the " Hark-away ;" but the conductor 
of the " Admiral Napier " settled the 
contest in a most satisfactory manner 
for all parties, by seizing Dumps round 
the waist, and thrusting him into the 
middle of his vehicle which had just 
come up and only wanted the sixteenth 
inside. 

« All right," said the " Admiral," 
and off the thing thundered, like a 
fire-engine at full gallop, with the 
kidnapped customer inside, standing 
in the position of a half doubled-up 
bootjack, and falling about with every 
jerk of the machine, first on the one 
side and then on the other like a 
" Jack-in-the-green, '"' on May-day, 
setting to the lady with a brass ladle. 



" For Heaven's sake, where am I 

I to sit ? " inquired the miserable man 

j of an old gentleman, into whose 

stomach he had just fallen for the 

fourth time. 

" Any where but on my cJicst, sir," 
! replied the old gentleman in a surly 
i tone. 



Perhaps the Ijox woulc 



the 



gentleman better," suggested a very 
damp lawyers clerk, in a pink shirt, 
and a smirking countenance. 

After a great deal of struggling and 
falling about, Dumps at last managed 
to squeeze himself into a seat, which, 
in addition to the slight disadvantage 
of being between a window that would 
not shut, and a door that must be open, 
placed him in close contact with a pas- 
senger, who had been walking about 
all the morning without an umbrella, 
and who looked as if he had spent the 
day in a full water-butt — only wetter. 

"Don't bang the door so," said 
Dumps to the conductor, as he shut 
it, after letting out four of the pas- 
sengers ; "I am very nervous — it 
destroys me." 

" Did any gen'lm'n say any think I " 
replied the cad, thrusting in his head, 
and trying to look as if he didn't 
understand the request. 

" I told you not to bang the door so ! " 
repeated Dumps, with an expression 
of countenance like the knave of clubs, 
in convulsions. 

" Oh ! vy, its rather a sing'ler cir- 
cumstance about this here door, sir, 
that it von't shut without banging," 
replied the conductor ; and he opened 
the door very wide, and shut it again 
with a terrific bang, in proof of the 
assertion. 

" I De g» your pardon, sir," said a 
little prim, wheezing old gentleman, 
sitting opposite Dumps, " I beg your 
pardon ; but have you ever observed, 
when you have been in an omnibus on 
a wet day, that four people out of five 
always come in with large cotton 
umbrellas, without a handle at the top, 
or the brass spike at tne bottom V 

"Why, sir," returned Dumps, as he 
heard the clock strike twelve, "it 






THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING. 



291 



never struck me before ; but now you 
mention it, I Hollo ! hollo ! " shout- 
ed the persecuted individual, as the 
omnibus dashed pastDrury-lane, where 
he had directed to be set down. — 
« Where is the cad ? " 

" I think he 's on the box, sir," said 
the young gentleman before noticed 
in the pink shirt, which looked like 
a white one ruled with red ink. 

" I want to be set down ! " said 
Dumps in a faint voice, overcome by 
his previous efforts. 

" I think these cads want to be set 
down,"'' returned the attorney's clerk, 
chuckling at his sally. 

" Hollo ! " cried Dumps again. 

" Hollo ! " echoed the passengers. 
The omnibus passed St. Giles's 
church. 

u Hold hard ! " said the conductor ; 
" I 'm blowed if we ha'n't forgot the 
gen'lm'n as vas to be set down at 
Doory-lane. — Now, sir, make haste, 
if you please," he added, opening the 
door, and assisting Dumps out with as 
much coolness as if it was " all right." 
Dumps's indignation was for once get- 
ting the better of his cynical equani- 
mity. " Drury-lane ! " he gasped, with 
the voice of a boy in a cold bath for 
the first time. 

" Doory-lane, sir ? — yes, sir, — third 
turning on the right-hand side, sir." 

Dumps's passion was paramount ; he 
clutched his umbrella, and was strid- 
ing off with the firm detei'mination of 
not paying the fare. The cad, by a 
remarkable coincidence, happened to 
entertain a directly contrary opinion, 
and Heaven knows how far the alter- 
cation would have proceeded, if it had 
not been most ably and satisfactorily 
brought to a close by the driver. 

" Hollo ! " said that respectable 
person, standing up on the box, and 
leaning with one hand on the roof of 
the omnibus. '• Hollo, Tom ! tell the 
gentleman if so be as he feels aggrieved, 
we will take him up to the Edge-er 
(Edgeware) Road for nothing, and set 
him down at Doory-lane when we comes 
back. He can't reject that, anyhow." 

The argument was irresistible : 



Dumps paid the disputed sixpence, 
and in a quarter of an hour was 
on the staircase - of No. 1 4, Great 
Russell-street. 

•Every thing indicated that prepara- 
tions were making for the reception of 
" a few friends " in the evening. Two 
dozen extra tumblers, and four ditto 
wine-glasses — looking anything but 
transparent, with little bits of straw in 
them — were on the slab in the passage, 
just arrived. There was a great smell 
of nutmeg, port wine, and almonds, on 
the staircase ; the covers were taken 
off the stair-carpet, and the figure of 
Venus on the first landing looked as if 
she were ashamed of the composition- 
candle in her right hand, which con- 
trasted beautifully with the lamp- 
blacked drapery of the goddess of love. 
The female servant (who looked very 
warm and bustling) ushered Dumps 
into a front drawing-room, very pret- 
tily furnished, with a plentiful sprink- 
ling of little baskets, paper table-mats, 
china watchmen, pink and gold albums, 
and rainbow-bound little books on the 
different tables. 

" Ah, uncle ! " said Mr. Kitterbell, 
" how d 'ye do ? Allow me — Jemima, 
my dear — my uncle. I think you 've 
seen Jemima before, sir V 

" Have had the pleasure" returned 
big Dumps, his tone and look making 
it doubtful whether in his life he had 
ever experienced the sensation. 

"I'm sure," said Mrs. Kitterbell, 
with a languid smile, and a slight 
cough. " I 'm sure — hem — any friend 
— of Charles's — hem — much less a 
relation, is " 

" I knew you 'd say so, my love," 
said little Kitterbell, who, while he 
appeared to be gazing on the opposite 
houses, was looking at his wife with a 
most affectionate air : " Bless you ! " 
The last two words were accompanied 
with a simper, and a squeeze of the 
hand, which stirred up all Uncle 
Dumps's bile. 

" Jane, tell nurse to bring down 
baby," said Mrs. Kitterbell, address- 
ing the servant. Mrs. Kitterbell was 
a tall, thin young lady, with very light 

u 2 



2S2 



SKETCHES BY EOZ. 



hair, and a particularly white face — 
one of those young women who almost 
invariably, though one hardly knows 
why, recal to one's mind the idea of a 
cold fillet of veal. Out went the ser- 
vant, and in came the nurse, with a 
remarkably small parcel in her arms, 
packed up in a blue mantle trimmed 
with white fur. — This was the baby. 

" Now, uncle/' said Mr. Kitterbell, 
lifting up that part of the mantle which 
covered the infant's face, with an air 
of great triumph, " Who do you think 
he's like ? " 

" He ! he ! Yes, who ? " said Mrs. 
K., putting her arm through her hus- 
band's, and looking up into Dumps's 
face with an expression of as much 
interest as she was capable of dis- 
playing. 

" Good God, how small he is ! " 
cried the amiable uncle, starting back 
with well-feigned surprise ; " remark- 
ally small indeed." 

" Do you think so I " inquired poor 
little Kitterbell, rather alarmed. "He's j 
a monster to what he was — ain't he 
nurse I " 

" He 's a dear," said the nurse, ! 
squeezing the child, and evading the 
question — not because she scrupled to 
disguise the fact, but because she j 
couldn't afford to throw away the 
chance of Dumps's half-crown. 

" Well, but who is he like I " in- 
quired little Kitterbell. 

Dumps looked at the little pink heap 
before him, and only thought at the j 
moment of the best mode of mortifying i 
the youthful parents. 

"I really don't know who he 's j 
like," he auswered, very well knowing 
the reply expected of him. 

"Don't you think he's like met" 
inquired his nephew with a knowing 
air. 

" Oh, decidedly not ! " returned 
Dumps, with an emphasis not to be 
misunderstood. " Decidedly not like 
you. — Oh, certainly not." 

" Like Jemima ? " asked Kitter- 
bell, faintly. 

" Oh dear, no ; not in the least. 
I 'm no judge, of course, in such cases; 



but I really think he 's more like one 
of those little carved representations 
that one sometimes sees blowing a 
trumpet on a tombstone ! " The nurse 
stooped down over the child, and with 
great difficulty prevented an explosion 
of mirth. Pa and ma looked almost 
as miserable as their amiable uncle. 

" Well ! " said the disappointed 
little father, " you '11 be better able to 
tell what he 's like by-and-by. You 
shall see him this evening with his 
mantle off." 

" Thank you," said Dumps, feeling 
particularly grateful. 

" Now, my love," said Kitterbell 
to his wife, " it 's time we were off. 
We 're to meet the other godfather 
and the godmother at the church, 
uncle,— Mr. and Mrs. Wilson from 
over the way — uncommonly nice peo- 
ple. My love, are you well wrapped up 2" 

" Yes, dear." 

"Are you sure you won't have 
another shawl I " inquired the anxious 
husband. 

" No, sweet," returned the charming 
mother, accepting Dumps's proffered 
arm ; and the little party entered the 
hackney coach that was to take them 
to the church ; Dumps amusing Mrs. 
Kitterbell by expatiating largely on the 
danger of measles, thrush, teeth-cut- 
ting, and other interesting diseases to 
which children are subject. 

The ceremony (which occupied 
about five minutes) passed off without 
anything particular occurring. The 
clergyman had to dine some distance 
from town, and had two churchings, 
three christenings, and a funeral to 
perform in something less than an hour. 
The godfathers and godmother, there- 
fore, promised to renounce the devil 
and all his works — " and all that sort 
of thing " — as little Kitterbell said — 
" in less than no time ; " and, with 
the exception of Dumps nearly letting 
the child fall into the font when he 
handed it to the clergyman, the whole 
affair went off in the usual business- 
like and matter-of-course manner, and 
Dumps re-entered the Bank -gates at 
two o'clock with a heavy heart, and 



THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING. 



2T6 



the painful conviction that he was 
regularly booked for an evening 
party. 

Evening came — and so did Dumps's 
pumps, black silk stockings, and white 
cravat which he had ordered to be for- 
warded, per boy, from Pentonville. 
The depressed godfather dressed him- 
self at a friend's counting-house, from 
whence, with his spirits fifty degrees 
below proof, he sallied forth — as the 
weather had cleared up, and the even- 
ing was tolerably fine — to walk to 
Great Russell-street. Slowly he paced 
up Cheapside, Newgate-street, down 
Snow-hill, and up Holborn ditto, look- 
ing as grim as the figure head of a 
man-of-war, and finding out fresh 
causes of misery at every step. As he 
was crossing the corner of Hatton- 
garden, a man apparently intoxicated, 
rushed against him, and would have 
knocked him down, had he not been 
providential^ caught by a very gesiteel 
young man, who happened to be close 
to him at the time. The shock so dis- 
arranged Dumps's nerves, as well as 
his dress, that he could hardly stand. 
The gentleman took his arm, and in the 
kindest manner walked with him as 
far as FurnivaTs Inn. Dumps, for 
about the first time in his life, felt 
grateful and polite; and he and the 
gentlemanly-looking young man parted 
with mutual expressions of good will. 

" There are at least some well-dis- 
posed men in the world," ruminated 
the misanthropical Dumps, as he pro- 
ceeded towards his destination. 

Rat — tat — ta - ra- ra- ra - ra - rat — 
knocked a hackney-coachman at Kit- 
terbell's door, in imitation of a gentle- 
man's servant, just as Dumps reached 
it ; and out came an old lady in a 
large toque, and an old gentleman in a 
blue coat, and three female copies of 
the old lady in pink dresses, and shoes 
to match. 

"It's a large party," sighed the 
unhappy godfather, wiping the perspi- 
ration from his forehead, and leaning 
against the area-railings. It was some 
time before the miserable man could 
muster up courage to knock at the 



door, and when he did, the smart ap- 
pearance of a neighbouring green- 
grocer (who had been hired to wait for 
seven and sixpence, and whose calves 
alone were worth double the money), 
the lamp in the passage, and the Venus 
on the landing, added to the hum of 
many voices, and the sound of a harp 
and two violins, painfully convinced 
him that his surmises were but too 
well founded. 

" How are you ? " said little Kitter- 
bell, in a greater bustle than ever, 
bolting out of the little back parlour 
with a corkscrew in his hand, and 
various particles of sawdust, looking 
like so many inverted commas, on his 
inexpressibles. 

" Good God ! " said Dumps, turning 
into the aforesaid parlour to put his 
shoes on which he had brought in his 
coat-pocket, and still more appalled by 
the sight of seven fresh-drawn corks, 
and a corresponding number of decan- 
ters. " How many people are there 
up-stairs % " 

" Oh, not above thirty-five. We 've 
had the carpet taken up in the back 
drawing-room, and the piano and the 
card-tables are in the front. Jemima 
thought we 'd better have a regular 
sit-down supper in the front parlour, 
because of the speechifying, and all 
that. But, Lord ! uncle, what 's the 
matter ? " continued the excited little 
man, as Dumps stood with one shoe 
on, rummaging his pockets Avith the 
most frightful distortion of visage, 
" What have you lost ? Your pocket- 
book ?" 

" No," returned Dumps, diving first 
into one pocket and then into the other, 
and speaking in a voice like Desde- 
mona with the pillow over her mouth. 

" Your card-case % snuff-box ? the 
key of your lodgings ? " continued 
Kitterbell, pouring question on ques- 
tion with the rapidity of lightning. 

" No ! no ! " ejaculated Dumps, still 
diving eagerly into his empty pocket. 

" Not — not — the mug you spoke of 
this morning ? " 

"Yes, the mug!" replied Dumps, 
sinking into a chair. 



294 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



" How could you have done it ? " in- 
quired Kitterbell. " Are you sure you 
brought it out ? " 

" Yes ! yes I I see it all " said 
Dumps, starting up as the idea flashed 
across his mind ; " miserable dog that 
I am — I was born to suffer. I see it 
all ; it was the gentlemanly-looking 
young man ! " 

" Mr. Dumps ! " shouted the green- 
grocer in a stentorian voice, as he 
ushered the somewhat recovered god- 
father into the drawing-room half an 
hour after the above declaration. " Mr. 
Dumps ! "—everybody looked at the 
door, and in came Dumps, feeling 
about as much out of place as a sal- 
mon might be supposed to be on a 
gravel-walk. 

" Happy to see you again," said Mrs. 
Kitterbell, quite unconscious of the un- 
fortunate man's confusion and misery ; 
" you must allow me to introduce you 
to a few of our friends : — my mamma, 
Mr. Dumps — ray papa and sisters." 
Dumps seized the hand of the mother 
as warmly as if she was his own 
parent, bowed to the young ladies, and 
against a gentleman behind him, and 
took no notice whatever of the father, 
who had been bowing incessantly for 
three minutes and a quarter. 

"Uncle," said little Kitterbell, after 
Dumps had been introduced to a select 
dozen or two, " you must let me lead 
you to the other end of the room, to 
introduce you to 'my friend Danton. 
Such a splendid fellow ! — I 'm sure 
you '11 like him — this way," — Dumps 
followed as tractably as a tame bear. 

Mr. Danton was a young man of 
about five-and-twenty, with a consider- 
able stock of impudence, and a very 
small share of ideas : he was a great 
favourite, especially with young ladies 
of from sixteen to twenty-six years of 
age, both inclusive. He could imitate 
the French-horn to admiration, sang 
comic songs most inimitably, and had 
the most insinuating way of saying im- 
pertinent nothings to his doting female 
admirers. He had acquired, somehow 
or other, the reputation of being a 
great wit, and, accordingly, whenever 



he opened his mouth, everybody who 
knew him laughed very heartily. 

The introduction took place in due 
form. Mr. Danton bowed, and twirled 
a lady's handkerchief, which he held 
in his hand, in a most comic way. 
Everybody smiled. 

" Very warm," said Dumps, feeling 
it necessary to say something. 

" Yes. It was warmer yesterday,-"' 
returned the brilliant Mr. Danton. — 
A general laugh. 

" I have great pleasure in congratu- 
lating you on your first appearance in 
the character of a father, sir," he 
continued, addressing Dumps — " god- 
father, I mean." — The young ladies 
were convulsed, and the gentlemen in 
ecs'tacies. 

A general hum of admiration inter- 
rupted the conversation, and an- 
nounced the entrance of nurse with 
the baby. An universal rush of the 
young ladies immediately took place. 
(Girls are always so fond of babies in 
company.) 

K Oh, you dear ! " said one. 

" How sweet 1 " cried another, in a 
low tone of the most enthusiastic ad- 
miration. 

" Heavenly ! " added a third. 

" Oh ! what dear little arms ! " said 
a fourth, holding up an arm and fist 
about the size and shape of the leg of 
a fowl cleanly picked. 

" Did you ever ! " — said a little 
coquette with a large bustle, who 
looked like a French lithograph, ap- 
pealing to a gentleman in three waist- 
coats — " Did you ever ! " 

" Never, in my life," returned her 
admirer, pulling up his collar. 

" Oh ! do let me take it, nurse," cried 
another young lady. " The love ! " 

" Can it open its eyes, nurse I " in- 
quired another, affecting the utmost 
innocence. — Suffice it to say, that the 
single ladies unanimously voted him 
an angel, and that the married ones, 
nem. con., agreed that he was decidedly 
the finest baby they had ever beheld — 
except their own. 

The quadrilles were resumed with 
great spirit. Mr. Danton was univer- 



THE BLOOMSBUItY CHRISTENING. 



295 



sally admitted to be beyond himself, 
several young ladies enchanted the 
company and gained admirers by sing- 
ing "We met" — "I saw her at the 
Fancy Fair "—and other equally sen- 
timental and interesting ballads. " The 
young men," as Mrs. Kitterbell said, 
"made themselves very agreeable ;" 
the girls did not lose their opportu- 
nity ; and the evening promised to go 
off excellently. Dumps didn't mind 
it : he had devised a plan for himself 
— a little bit of fun in his own way — 
and he was almost happy ! He played 
a rubber and lost every point. Mr. 
Danton said he could not have lost 
every point, because he made a point 
of losing : everybody laughed tre- 
mendously. Dumps retorted with' a 
better joke, and nobody smiled, with 
the exception of the host, who seemed 
to consider it his duty to laugh till he 
was black in the face, at everything. 
There was only one drawback — the 
musicians did not play with quite as 
much spirit as could have been wished. 
The cause, however, was satisfactorily 
explained ; for it appeared, on the 
testimony of a gentleman who had 
come up from Gravesend in the after- 
noon, that they had been engaged on 
board a steamer all day, and had played 
almost without cessation all the way 
to Gravesend, and all the way back 
again. 

The " sit-down supper M was excel- 
lent ; there were four barley-sugar 
temples on the table, which would 
have looked beautiful if they had not 
melted away when the supper began ; 
and a water-mill, whose only fault was 
that instead of going round, it ran over 
the table-cloth. Then there were 
fowls, and tongue, and ti'ifle, and 
sweets, and lobster salad, and potted 
beef — and every thing. And little 
Kitterbell kept calling out for clean 
plates, and the clean plates did not 
come ; and then the gentlemen who 
wanted the plates said they didn't 
mind, they'd take a lady's ; and then 
Mrs. Kitterbell applauded their gal- 
lantry, and the greengrocer ran about 
till he thought his seven and sixpence 



was very hardly earned : and the 
young ladies didn't eat much for fear 
it shouldn't look romantic, and the 
married ladies eat as much as possible, 
for fear they shouldn't have enough ; 
and a great deal of wine was drunk, 
and everybody talked and laughed 
considerably. 

" Hush ! hush ! " said Mr. Kitter- 
bell, rising and looking very important. 
" My love (this was addressed to his 
wife at the other end of the table), 
take care of Mrs. Maxwell, and your 
mamma, and the rest of the married 
ladies ; the gentlemen will persuade 
the young ladies to fill their glasses, I 
am sure." 

" Ladies and gentlemen," said long 
Dumps, in a very sepulchral voice and 
rueful accent, rising from Ids chair 
like the ghost in Don Juan, " will you 
have the kindness to charge jour 
glasses s I am desirous of proposing 
a toast." 

A dead silence ensued, and the 
glasses were filled — everybody looked 
serious. 

« Ladies and gentlemen," slowly 
continued the ominous Dumps, " I " — 
(here Mr. Danton imitated two notes 
from the French-horn, in a very loud 
key, which electrified the nervous 
toast-proposer, and convulsed his audi- 
ence). 

" Order ! order ! " said little Kitter- 
bell, endeavouring to suppress his 
laughter. 

« Order ! " said the gentlemen. 

" Danton, be quiet," said a particular 
friend on the opposite side of the 
table. 

" Ladies and gentlemen," resumed 
Dumps, somewhat recovered, and not 
much disconcerted, for he was always 
a pretty good hand at a speech — " In 
accordance with what is, I believe, the 
established usage on these occasions, I, 
as one of the godfathers of Master 
Frederick Charles William Kitterbell 
— (here the speaker's voice faltered, 
for he remembered the mug) — venture 
to rise to propose a toast. I need 
hardly say that it is the health and 
prosperity of that young gentleman, 



206 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



the particular event of whose early life 
we are here met to celebrate — (ap- 
plause). Ladies and gentlemen, it is 
impossible to suppose that our friends 
here, whose sincere well-wishers we 
all are, can pass through life without 
some trials, considerable suffering, se- 
vere affliction, and heavy losses ! " — 
Here the arch-traitor paused, and 
slowly drew forth a long, white pocket- 
handkerchief — his example was fol- 
lowed by several ladies. " That these 
trials may be long spared them is my 
most earnest prayer, my most fervent 
wish (a distinct sob from the grand- 
mother). I hope and trust, ladies and 
gentlemen, that the infant whose 
christening we have this evening met 
to celebrate, may not be removed from 
the arms of his parents by premature 
decay (several cambrics were in requi- 
sition) ; that his young and now ap- 
parently healthy form, may not be 
wasted by lingering disease. (Here 
Dumps cast a sardonic glance around, 
for a great sensation was manifest 
among the married ladies.) You, I 
am sure, will concur with me in wish- 
ing that he may live to be a comfort 
and a blessing to his parents. (< Hear, 
hear ! ' and an audible sob from Mr. 
Kitterbell.) But should he not be 
what we could wish — should he forget 
in after times the duty which he owes 
to them — should they unhappily expe- 
rience that distracting truth, 'how 
sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to 
have a thankless child.' " — Here Mrs. 
Kitterbell, with her handkerchief to 
her eyes, and accompanied by several 
ladies, rushed from the room, and 
went into violent hysterics in the pas- 



sage, leaving her better half in almost 
as bad a. condition, and a general im- 
pression in Dumps's favour ; for people 
like sentiment, after all. 

It need hardly be added, that this 
occurrence quite put a stop to the har- 
mony of the evening. Vinegar, harts- 
horn, and cold water, were now as 
much in request as negus, rout-cakes, 
and bon-bons had been a short time 
before. Mrs. Kitterbell was immedi- 
ately conveyed to her apartment, the 
musicians were silenced,fiirting ceased, 
and the company slowly ^departed. 
Dumps left the house at the commence- 
ment of the bustle, and walked home 
with a light step, and (for him) a 
cheerful heart. His landlady, who 
slept in the next room, has offered to 
make oath that she heard him laugh, 
in his peculiar manner, after he had 
locked his door. The assertion, how- 
ever, is so improbable, and bears on 
the face of it such strong evidence of 
untruth, that it has never obtained 
credence to this hour. 

The family of Mr. Kitterbell has 
considerably increased since the period 
to which we have referred ; he has 
now two sons and a daughter ; and as 
he expects, at no distant period, to 
have another addition to his blooming 
progeny, he is anxious to secure an 
eligible godfather for the occasion. He 
is determined, however, to impose 
upon him two conditions. He must 
bind himself, by a solemn obligation, 
not to make any speech alter supper ; 
and it is indispensable that he should 
be in no way connected with "the most 
miserable man in the world." 



THE DRUNKARDS DEATH. 



29 i 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE DRUNKARDS DEATH 



We will be bold to say, that there is 
scarcely a man in the constant habit 
of walking, clay after day, through any 
of the crowded thoroughfares of Lon- 
don, who cannot recollect among the 
people whom he " knows by sight," to 
use a familiar phrase, some being of 
abject and wretched appearance whom 
he remembers to have seen in a 
very different condition, whom he has 
observed sinking lower and lower, 
by almost imperceptible degrees, and 
the shabbiness and utter destitution 
of whose appearance, at last, strike 
forcibly and painfully upon him, as he 
passes b}\ Is there any man who has 
mixed much with society, or whose 
avocations have caused him to mingle, 
at one time or other, with a great 
number of people, who cannot call to 
mind the time when some shabby, 
miserable wretch, in rags and filth, 
who shuffles past him now in all the 
squalor of disease and poverty, was a 
respectable tradesman, or a clerk, or 
a man following some thriving pursuit, 
with good prospects, and decent 
means ? — or cannot any of our readers 
call to mind from among the list of 
their quondam acquaintance, some 
fallen and degraded man, who lingers 
about the pavement in hungry misery 
— from whom every one turns coldly 
away, and who preserves himself from 
sheer starvation, nobody knows hew ? 
Alas ! such cases are of too frequent 
occurrence to be rare items in any 
man's experience ; and but too- often 
arise from one cause — drunkenness — 
that fierce rage for the slow, sure 
poison, that oversteps every other 
consideration ; that casts aside wife, 
children, friends, happiness, and sta- 
tion ; and hurries its victims madly on 
to degradation and death. 

Some of these men have been im- 
pelled, by misfortune and misery, to 



the vice that has degraded them. The 
ruin of worldly expectations, the death 
of those they loved, the sorrow that 
slowly consumes, but will not break 
the heart, has driven them wild ; and 
they present the hideous spectacle of 
madmen, slowly dying by their own 
hands. But by far the greater part 
have wilfully, and with open eyes, 
plunged into the gulf from which the 
man who once enters it never rises 
more, but into which he sinks deeper 
and deeper down, until recovery is 
hopeless. 

Such a man as this once stood by 
the bed-side of his dying wife, while 
his children knelt around, and mingled 
low bursts of grief with their innocent 
prayers. The room was scantily and 
meanly furnished ; and it needed but 
a glance at the pale form from which 
the light of life was fast passing away, 
to know that grief, and want, and 
anxious care, had been busy at the 
heart for many a weary year. An 
elderly female, with her face bathed 
in tears, was supporting the head of 
the dying woman — her daughter — on 
her arm. But it was not towards her 
that the wan face turned ; it was not 
her hand that the cold and trembling 
fingers clasped ; they pressed the hus- 
band's arm ; the eyes so soon to be 
closed in death rested on his face, and 
the man shook beneath their gaze. 
His dress was slovenly and disordered, 
his face inflamed, his eyes bloodshot 
and heavy. He had been summoned 
from some wild debauch to the bed of 
sorrow and death. 

A shaded lamp by the bed-side cast 
a dim light on the figures around, and 
left the remainder of the room in 
thick, deep shadow. The silence of 
night prevailed without the house, and 
the stillness of death was in the cham- 
ber. A watch hung over the mantel- 



290 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



shelf ; its low ticking was the only 
sound that broke the profound quiet, 
but it was a solemn one, for well they 
knew, who heard it, that before it had 
recorded the passing of another hour, 
it would beat the knell of a departed 
spirit. 

It is a dreadful thing to wait and 
watch for the approach of death; to 
know that hope is gone, and recovery 
impossible ; and to sit and count the 
dreary hours through long, long, 
nights — such nights as only watchers 
by the bed of sickness know. It chills 
the blood to hear the dearest secrets 
of the heart — the pent-up, hidden se- 
crets of many years — poured forth by 
the unconscious helpless being before 
you ; and to think how little the re- 
serve and cunning of a whole life will 
avail, when fever and delirium tear off 
the mask at last. Strange tales have 
been told in the wanderings of dying 
men ; tales so full of guilt and crime, 
that those who stood by the sick per- 
son's couch have fled in horror and 
affright, lest they should be scared to 
madness by what they heard and saw ; 
and many a wretch has died alone, 
raving of deeds the very name of which 
has driven the boldest man away. 

But no such ravings were to be 
heard at the bed-side by which the 
children knelt. Their half-stifled sobs 
and moanings alone broke the silence 
of the lonely chamber. And when at 
last the mother's grasp relaxed, and, 
turning one look from the children to 
their father, she vainly strove to speak, 
and fell backward on the pillow, all 
was so calm and tranquil that she 
seemed to sink to sleep. They leant 
over her ; they called upon her name, 
softly at first, and then in the loud and 
piercing tones of desperation. But 
there was no reply. They listened for 
her breath, but no sound came. They 
felt for the palpitation of the heart, 
but no faint throb responded to the 
touch. That heart was broken, and 
she was dead ! 

The husband sunk into a chair by 
the bed-side, and clasped his hands 
upon his burning forehead. He gazed 



from child to child, but when a weep- 
ing eye met his, he quailed beneath its 
look. No word of comfort was whis- 
pered in his ear, no look of kindness 
lighted on his face. All shrunk from 
and avoided him ; and when at last he 
staggered from the room,.no one sought 
to follow or console the widower. 

The time had been when many a 
friend would have crowded round him 
in his affliction, and many a heartfelt 
condolence would have met him in his 
grief. Where were they now ? One 
by one, friends, relations, the common- 
est acquaintance even, had fallen off 
from and deserted the drunkard. His 
wife alone had clung to him in good 
and evil, in sickness and poverty ; and 
how had he rewarded her ? He had 
reeled from the tavern to her bed-side, 
in time to see her die. 

He rushed from the house, and 
walked swiftly through the streets. 
Remorse, fear, shame, all crowded on 
his mind. Stupified with drink, and 
bewildered with the scene he had just 
witnessed, he re-entered the tavern 
he had quitted shortly before. Glass 
succeeded glass. His blood mounted, 
and his brain whirled round. Death ! 
Every one must die, and why not she. 
She was too good for him ; her rela- 
tions had often told him so. Curses 
on them ! Had they not deserted her, 
and left her to whine away the time 
at home ? Well — she was dead, and 
happy perhaps. It was better as it 
was. Another glass — one more ! 
Hurrah ! It was a merry life while 
it lasted ; and he would make the 
most of it. 

Time went on ; the three children 
who were left to him, grew up, and 
were children no longer. The father 
remained the same — poorer, shabbier, 
and more dissolute-looking, but the 
same confirmed and irreclaimable 
drunkard. The boys had, long ago, 
run wild in the streets, and left him; 
the girl alone remained, but she worked 
hard, and words or blows could always 
procure him something for the tavern. 
So he went on in the old course, and a 
merry life he led. 



THE DRUNKARD'S DEATH. 



°'\ ! ) 



One night, as early as ten o'clock — 
for the girl had been sick for many 
days, and there was, consequently, little 
to spend at the public-house — he bent 
his steps homewards, bethinking him- 
self that if he would have her able to 
earn money, it would be as well to 
apply to the parish surgeon, or, at all 
events, to take the trouble of inquiring 
what ailed her, which he had not yet 
thought it worth while to do. It was 
a wet December night ; the wind blew 
piercing cold, and the rain poured hea- 
vily down. He begged a few halfpence 
from a passer-by, and having bought 
a small loaf (for it was his interest to 
keep the girl alive, if he could), he 
shuffled onwards as fast as the wind 
and rain would let him. 

At the back of Fleet-street, and 
lying between it and the water-side, 
are several mean and narrow courts, 
which form a portion of Whitefriars : 
it was to one of these that he directed 
his steps. 

The alley into which he turned, 
might, for filth and misery, have com- 
peted with the darkest corner of this 
ancient sanctuary in its dirtiest and 
most lawless time. The houses, vary- 
ing from two stories in height to four, 
were stained with every indescribable 
hue that long exposure to the weather, 
damp, and rottenness can impart to 
tenements composed originally of the 
roughest and coarsest materials. The 
windows were patched with paper, and 
stuffed with the foulest rags; the doors 
were falling from their hinges ; poles 
with lines on which to dry clothes, 
projected from every casement, and 
sounds of quarrelling or drunkenness 
issued from every room. 

The solitary oil lamp in the centre 
of the court had been blown out, either 
by the violence of the wind or the act 
of some inhabitant who had excellent 
reasons for objecting to bis residence 
being rendered too conspicuous ; and 
the only light which fell upon the 
broken and uneven pavement, was de- 
rived from the miserable candles that 
here and there twinkled in the rooms 
of such of the more fortunate residents 



as could afford to indulge in so expen- 
sive a luxury. A gutter ran down the 
centre of the alley — all the sluggish 
odours of which had been called forth 
by the rain ; and as the wind whistled 
through the old houses, the doors and 
shutters creaked upon their hinges, 
and the windows shook in their frames, 
with a violence which every moment 
seemed to threaten the destruction of 
the whole place. 

The man whom we have followed 
into this den, walked on in the 
darkness, sometimes stumbling into 
the main gutter, and at others into 
some branch repositories of garbage 
which had been formed by the rain, 
until he reached the last house in the 
court. The door, or rather what was 
left of it, stood ajar, for the conve- 
nience of the numerous lodgers ; and 
he proceeded to grope his way up the 
old and broken stair, to the attic story. 

He was within a step or two of his 
room door, when it opened, and a girl, 
whose miserable and emaciated ap- 
pearance was only to be equalled by 
that of the candle which she shaded 



with her hand, peeped anxiously out. 

" Is that you, father?" said the girl. 

" Who else should it be ? " replied 
the man gruffly. "What are you 
trembling at 1 It 's little enough that 
I 've had to drink to-day, for there 's 
no drink without money, and no money 
without work. What the devil 's the 
matter with the girl ? " 

" I am not well, father — not at all 
well," said the girl, bursting into tears. 

" Ah ! " replied the man, in the 
tone of a person who is compelled to 
admit a very unpleasant fact, to which 
he would rather remain blind, if he 
could. " You must get better some- 
how, for we must have money. You 
must go to the parish doctor, and make 
him give you some medicine. They 're 
paid for it, damn 'em. What are you 
standing before the door for \ Let me 
come in, can't you ? " 

" Father," whispered the girl, shut- 
ting the door behind her, and placing 
herself before it, " William has come 
back." 



300 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



" Who ! " said the man with a start. 

" Hush," replied the girl, " William; 
brother William." 

" And what does he want % " said 
the man, with an effort at composure 



money 



meat ? drink ? He 's 



come to the wrong shop for that, if he 
does. Give me the candle — give me 
the candle, fool — I ain't going to hurt 
him." He snatched the candle from 
her hand, and walked into the room. 

Sitting on an old box, with his head 
resting on his hand, and his eyes fixed 
on a wretched cinder fire that was 
smouldering on the hearth, was a young 
man of about two-and-twenty, miser- 
ably clad in an old coarse jacket and 
trousers. He started up when his 
father entered. 

" Fasten the door, Mary," said the 
young man hastily — " Fasten the door. 
You look as if you didn't know me. 
father. It's long enough, since you 
drove me from home ; you may well 
forget me." 

" And what do you want here, 
now 1 " said the father, seating himself 
on a stool, on the other side of the fire- 
place. "What do you want here, now I" 

" Shelter," replied the son, " I 'm 
in trouble : that 's enough. If I 'm 
caught I shall swing ; that 's certain. 
Caught I shall be, unless I stop here ; 
that "s as certain. And there 's an end 
of it." 

" You mean to say, you 've been 
robbing, or murdering, then % " said 
the father. 

" Yes I do," replied the son. " Does 
it surprise you, father ?" He looked 
steadily in the man's face, but he with- 
drew his eyes, and bent them on the 
ground. 

" Where 's your brothers ? " he 
said, after a long pause. 

" Where they '11 never trouble you," 
replied his son : " John 's gone to 
America, and Henry 's dead." 

"Dead !" said the father, with a shud- 
der, which even he could not repress. 

" Dead/' replied the young man. 
" He died in my arms — shot like a dog, 
by a gamekeeper. He staggered back, 
I caught him, and his blood trickled 



down my hands. It poured out from 
his side like water. He was weak, and 
it blinded him, but he threw himself 
down on his knees, on the grass, and 
prayed to God, that if his mother was 
in heaven, He would hear her prayers 
for pardon for her youngest son. ' I 
was her favourite boy, Will,' he said, 
'and I am glad to think, now, that 
when she was dying, though I was a 
very young child then, and my little 
heart was almost bursting, I knelt 
down at the foot of the bed, and 
thanked God for having made me so 
fond of her as to have never once done 
anything to bring the tears into her 
eyes. Will, why was she taken 
away, and father left ! ' There 's his 
dying words, father," said the young 
man ; make the best you can of em. 
You struck him across the face, in a 
drunken fit, the morning we ran away ; 
and here 's the end of it." 

The girl wept aloud ; and the father, 
sinking his head upon his knees, rocked 
himself to and fro. 

" If I am taken," said the young 
man, " 1 shall be carried back into the 
country, and hung for that man's 
murder. They cannot trace me here, 
without your assistance, father. For 
aught I know, you may give me up 
to justice ; but unless you do, here 
I stop, until I can venture to escape 
abroad." 

For two whole days, all three re- 
mained in the wretched room, without 
stirring out. On the third evening, 
however, the girl was worse than she had 
been yet, and the few scraps of food 
they had were gone. It was indispensa- 
bly necessary that somebody should go 
out ; and as the girl was too weak and 
ill, the father went, just at nightfall. 

He got some medicine for the girl, 
and a trifle in the way of pecuniary 
assistance. On his way back, he 
earned sixpence by holding a horse ; 
and he turned homewards with enough 
money to supply their most pressing 
wants for two or three days to come. 
He had to pass the public -house. He 
lingered for an instant, walked past it, 
turned back again, lingered once more, 



THE DRUNKARD'S DEATH. 



301 



and finally slunk in. Two men whom 
he had not observed, were on the 
watch. They were on the point of 
giving up their search in despair, when 
his loitering attracted their attention ; 
and when he entered the public-house, 
they followed him, 

" You '11 drink with me, master," 
said one of them, proffering him a glass 
of liquor. 

"And me too," said the other, re- 
plenishing the glass as soon as it was 
drained of its contents. 

The man thought of his hungry 
children, and his son's danger. But 
they were nothing to the drunkard. 
He did drink ; and his reason left him. 

" A wet night, Warden," whispered 
one of the men in his ear, as he at 
length turned to go away, after spend- 
ing in liquor one-half of the money on 
which, perhaps, his daughter's life de- 
pended. 

" The right sort of night for our 
friends in hiding, Master Warden," 
whispered the other. 

" Sit down here," said the one who 
had spoken first, drawing him into a 
corner. " We have been looking arter 
the young un. We came to tell him, 
it 's all right now, but we couldn't find 
him 'cause we hadn't got the precise 
direction. But that ain't strange, for 
I don't think he know'd it himself, 
when he come to London, did he ? " 

" No, he didn't," replied the father. 

The two men exchanged glances. 

" There 's a vessel down at the docks, 
to sail at midnight, when it 's high 
water," resumed the first speaker, 
"and we'll put him on board. His 
passage is taken in another name, and 
what ; s better than that, it 's paid for. 
It's lucky we met you." 

" Very," said the second. 

'•' Capital luck," said the first, with a 
wink to his companion. 

u Great," replied the second, with a 
slight nod of intelligence. 

" Another glass here ; quick" — said 
the first speaker. And in five minutes 
more, the father had unconsciously 
yielded up his own son into the hang- 
man's hands. 



Slowly and heavily the time dragge d 
along, as the brother and sister, in their 
miserable hiding-place, listened in 
anxious suspense to the slightest sound. 
At length, a heavy footstep was heard 
upon the stair ; it approached nearer ; 
it reached the landing ; and the father 
staggered into the room. 

The girl saw that he was intoxicated, 
and advanced with the candle in her 
hand to meet him ; she stopped short, 
gave a loud scream, and fell senseless 
on the ground. She had caught sight 
of the shadow of a man reflected on 
the floor. They both rushed in, and 
in another instant the young man was 
a prisoner, and handcuffed. 

" Very quietly done," said one of the 
men to his companion, " thanks to the 
old man. Lift up the girl, Tom — come, 
come, it 's no use crying, young woman. 
It 's all over now, and can't be 
helped." 

The young man stooped for an in- 
stant over the girl, and then turned 
fiercely round upon his father, who 
had reeled against the Avail, and was 
gazing on the group with drunken 
stupidity. 

" Listen to me, father," he said, in a 
tone that made the drunkard's flesh 
creep. " My brother's blood, and mine, 
is on your head : I never had kind 
look, or word, or care, from you, and 
alive or dead, I never will forgive you. 
Die when you will, or how, I Avill be 
with you. I speak as a dead man now, 
and I warn you, father, that as surely 
as you must one day stand before your 
Maker, so surely shall your children 
be there, hand in hand, to cry for 
judgment against you." He raised his 
manacled hands in a threatening atti- 
tude, fixed his eyes on his shrinking 
parent, and slowly left the room ; and 
neither father nor sister ever beheld him 
more, on this side of the grave. 

When the dim and misty light of a 
winter's morning penetrated into the 
narrow court, and struggled through 
the begrimed window of the wretched 
room, "Warden awoke from his heavy 
sleep, and found himself alone. He 
rose, and looked round him ; the old 



SKETCHES BY BOZ. 



flock mattress on the floor was undis- 
turbed ; everything was just as he re- 
membered to have seen it last : and 
there were no signs of any one, save 
himself, having occupied the room 
during the night. He inquired of the 
other lodgers, and of the neighbours ; 
but his daughter had not been seen 
or heard of. He rambled through the 
streets, and scrutinised each wretched 
face among the crowds that thronged 
them, with anxious eyes. But his 
search was fruitless, and he returned 
to his garret when night came on, 
desolate and weary. 

For many days he occupied himself 
in the same manner, but no trace of 
his daughter did he meet with, and no 
word of her reached his ears. At 
length he gave up the pursuit as hope- 
less. He had long thought of the pro- 
bability of her leaving him, and 
endeavouring to gain her bread in 
quiet, elsewhere. She had left him at 
last to starve alone. He ground his 
teeth, and cursed her ! 

He begged his bread from door to 
door. Every halfpenny he could 
wring from the pity or credulity of 
those to whom he addressed himself, 
was spent in the old way. A year 
passed over his head ; the roof of a 
jail was the only one that had sheltered 
him for many months. He slept under 
archways, and in brickfields — any 
where, where there was some warmth 
or shelter from the cold and rain. 
But in the last stage of poverty, dis- 
ease, and houseless want, he was a 
drunkard still. 

At last, one bitter night, he sunk 
down on a door-step faint and ill. The 
premature decay of vice and profligacy 
had worn him to the bone. His cheeks 
were hollow and livid ; his eves were 
sunken, and their sight was dim. His 
legs trembled beneath his weight, and 
a cold shiver ran through every limb. 

And now the long-forgotten scenes 
of a mispent life crowded thick and 
fast upon him. He thought of the 
time when he had a home — a happy, 
cheerful home — and of those who 
peopled it, and flocked about him then, 



until the forms of his elder children 
seemed to rise from the grave, and 
stand about him — so plain, so clear, 
and so distinct they were that he could 
touch and feel them. Looks that he 
had long forgotten were fixed upon 
him once more ; voices long since 
hushed in death sounded in his ears 
like the music of village bells. But it 
was only for an instant. The rain beat 
heavily upon him ; and cold and hun- 
ger were gnawing at his heart again. 

He rose, and dragged his feeble 
limbs a few paces further. The street 
was silent and empty ; the few passen- 
gers who passed by, at that late hour, 
hurried quickly on, and his tremulous 
voice was lost in the violence of the 
storm. Again that heavy chill struck 
through his frame, and his blood 
seemed to stagnate beneath it. He 
coiled himself up in a projecting door- 
way, and tried to sleep. 

But sleep had fled from his dull and 
glazed eyes. His mind wandered 
strangeh", but he was awake, and con- 
scious. The well-known shout of 
drunken mirth sounded in his ear, the 
glass was at his lips, the board was 
covered with choice rich food — they 
were before him : he could see them 
all, he had but to reach out his hand, 
and take them — and, though the illu- 
sion was reality itself, he knew that 
he was sitting alone in the deserted 
street, watching the rain-drops as they 
pattered on the stones ; that death 
was coming upon him by inches — and 
that there were none to care for or 
help him. 

Suddenly he started up, in the ex- 
tremity of terror. He had heard his 
own voice shouting in the night air, 
he knew not what, or why. Hark ! A 
groan ! — another ! His senses were 
leaving him : half-formed and inco- 
herent words burst from his lips ; and 
his hands sought to tear and lacerate 
his flesh. He was going mad, and he 
shrieked for help till his voice failed 
him. 

He raised his head, and looked up 
the long dismal street. He recollected 
that outcasts like himself, condemned 






THE DRUNKARD'S DEATH. 



303 



to wander day and night in those 
dreadful streets, had sometimes gone 
distracted with their own loneliness. 
He remembered to have heard many 
years before, that a homeless wretch 
had once been found in a solitary 
corner, sharpening a rusty knife to 
plunge into his own heart, preferring 
death to that endless, weary, wander- 
ing to and fro. In an instant his 
resolve was taken, his limbs received 
new life ; he ran quickly from the 
spot, and paused not for breath until 
he reached the river-side. 

He crept softly down the steep stone 
stairs that lead from the commence- 
ment of Waterloo Bridge, down to the 
water's level. He crouched into a 
corner, and held his breath, as the 
patrol passed. Never did prisoner's 
heart throb with the hope of liberty 
and life half so eagerly as did that of 
the wretched man at the prospect of 
death. The watch passed close to him, 
but he remained unobserved ; and 
after waiting till the sound of footsteps 
had died away in the distance, he 
cautiously descended, and stood be- 
neath the gloomy arch that forms the 
landing-place from the river. 

The tide was in, and the water 
flowed at his feet. The rain had 
ceased, the wind was lulled, and all 
was, for the moment, still and quiet- 
so quiet, that the slightest sound on the 
opposite bank, even the rippling of the 
water against the barges that were 
moored there, was distinctly audible to 
his ear. The stream stole languidly 
and sluggishly on. Strange and fan- 
tastic forms rose to the surface, and 



beckoned him to approach ; dark 
gleaming eyes peered from the water, 
and seemed to -mock his hesitation, 
while hollow murmurs from behind, 
urged him onwards. He retreated a 
few paces, took a short run, desperate 
leap, and plunged into the river. 

Not five seconds had passed when 
he rose to the water's surface — but 
what a change had taken place in that 
short time, in all his thoughts and 
feelings ! Life — life — in any form, 
poverty, misery, starvation* — anything 
but death. He fought and struggled 
with the water that closed over his 
head, and screamed in agonies of terror. 
The curse of his own son rang in his 
ears. The shore- — but one foot of dry 
ground — he could almost touch the 
step. One hand's breadth nearer, and 
he was saved — but the tide bore him 
onward, under the dark arches of the 
bridge, and he sank to the bottom. 

Again he rose, and struggled for life. 
For one instant — for one brief instant 
— the buildings on the river's banks, 
the lights on the bridge through which 
the current had borne him, the black 
water, and the fast-flying clouds, were 
distinctly visible — once more he sunk, 
and once again he rose. Bright flames 
of fire shot up from earth to heaven, 
and reeled before his eyes, while the 
water thundered in his ears, and 
stunned him with its furious roar. 

A week afterwards the body was 
washed ashore, some miles down the 
river, a swollen and disfigured mass. 
Unrecognised and unpitied, it was 
borne to the grave ; and there it has 
long since mouldered away .' 



THE- EKD. 



BEADEUItY AND EVAKS ffirNTEES, WHITEFKIAES. 



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Treatment Date: March 2009 

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